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Grant Winner -- MDIF&W Study
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The Maine
Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife was selected to be a
recipient of a 2006 FFIM Grant, which will help to support a study of Wild
Brook Trout on Chamberlain Lake in the Allagash.
In 2002, Regional staff recommended expanding an area in the northern end
of Chamberlain Lake that is closed to ice fishing in an effort to protect
an area that is believed to be a winter refuge for brook trout. This
proposal was based on several years of winter creel surveys and reports
from Game Wardens patrolling Chamberlain Lake. The Fisheries Division
denied the proposal, citing a lack of data. We hope to address this
concern by tracking mature brook trout during their post-spawning
movements through the ice-fishing season. This study will determine if
the current closed area is sufficient, insufficient, or totally unneeded.
It may also provide insights to other areas suspected of having high
densities of post-spawning brook trout. Identifying these areas are
important in a lake such as Chamberlain Lake because previous work
indicates brook trout are not very abundant and could be easily
over-harvested if, in fact, they are concentrated in small areas of the
lake. This type of regulation evaluation is very important. Protecting
the wild brook trout population is vital to the fishery and ecosystem at
Chamberlain Lake, one of the largest wild brook trout lakes in the State.
However, closing a large area of lake and thereby denying angling
opportunities would also be a significant impact to anglers. Therefore
illustrating the importance of this study as it directly relates to our
mandate to conserve, protect, and enhance the fisheries resource as well
as increasing angling opportunities. We have an obligation to evaluate
this issue to the best of our ability.
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| Brook
Trout tagged on Moosehead Lake in Region E
for a similar study. |
Chamberlain Lake was the only water sampled during the 2001 study.
However, it became apparent during the winter creel survey that some of
the fish marked in Chamberlain Lake were traveling throughout the system,
which includes Round Pond and Telos Lake. In 2006, we will expand our
efforts to include these two waters and look at them as a complete system
rather than individual waters.
The results from this study will be very important not only to the
Chamberlain system, but also to other large oligotrophic lakes in the
northwestern portion of Maine. For example, it is very difficult to
estimate population density on these large lakes. It requires a
substantial commitment of manpower and equipment. It is possible to
conduct this work on Chamberlain Lake periodically, but we simply do not
have the funds or staff to conduct this type of comprehensive study
annually, or on other large waters such as Moosehead Lake. However, the
physical characteristics of these large oligotrophic lakes are similar and
therefore the information obtained during the Chamberlain Lake study will
be useful for brook trout management on Moosehead Lake and other
oligotrophic lakes. These lakes obviously support some of our most
important lake fisheries for brook trout, but they also support all of our
major river fisheries, including some of our premier fly-fishing rivers.
In the Moosehead Lake Region that would include Allagash Stream, Roach
River, Moose River, and the East Outlet. Any study that helps us to
better understand the lake population will also benefit the river
fisheries.
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