Aroostook County Fishing Report: September 4, 2008

During our routine fisheries management which often involves measuring hundreds of sport fish per year, we occasionally get reports of exceptionally large fish. While not the norm, large fish are worthy of recognition for the state of Maine and the angler. This summer we have had two notably large fish caught in Aroostook County, one of which will qualify as a new State record.

First, a new state record Arctic charr was caught by Carter McLaughlin, age 11, of Mapleton on Aug. 20, 2008. A locally common name for the species is “blueback trout.” This particular fish was caught at Pushineer Pond, T15R9. Carter was accompanied by his father Lionel (on right in attached picture). The charr was 25.4 inches total length and weighed 5.24 pounds.

The previous record was a 4 pound 4 ounce fish caught by Merton Wyman at Basin Pond in 1958. Arctic charr are a rare fish, occurring in only 14 lakes and ponds scattered throughout the interior highlands in northern and western Maine.
Normally, Arctic charr in Maine waters are small (6-10 inches) and inhabit deep, cold water of mountain lakes. Currently, the greatest threat to these rare fish are introductions of non-native species of fish that are competitors with or predators upon Arctic charr.

The second large fish was also a member of the charr family, a lake trout, commonly called togue in Maine. The fish was 36 inches long and weighed 20 pounds; it was caught by Wayne McGary at Nickerson Lake on Aug. 2.

Togue are oftentimes the largest sport fish caught in Maine in any given year. What is unique about Wayne’s catch is the size of the water it came from; Nickerson Lake is only 234 acres, a small togue water for Maine. Typically, the waters we manage for togue exceed 1,000 acres. Togue were first introduced to Nickerson Lake by the State of Maine in 1960 and has been managed for them ever since along with brown trout and brook trout. In 1994 togue stocking was discontinued due to natural reproduction within the lake that was resulting in a very large population of small togue; in 2002 we liberalized harvest regulations by reducing the minimum length to 14 inches (down from 18 inches). This change resulted in more togue being kept by anglers and eventually a dramatic increase in the smelt population, the togue’s primary forage fish. The increased smelt population now has a faithful following of anglers who target this sport fish for not only for their own consumption but also as live bait. In the next few years, we expect very good growth in the togue population and we also expect that brown trout will benefit greatly from the increase in the smelt population. The next large fish report from Aroostook County might be a brown trout from Nickerson Lake.