ACADIA, Maine — This is a very busy time of year for Maine’s eight hatcheries that produce more than 1 million rainbow and brown trout, togue, splake and landlocked salmon a year.
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife says fish stocking in Maine provides a total economic impact of tens of millions of dollars each year in our state. The department says that’s a huge return on a $3 million annual investment from fishing license sales.
It's also a very busy time for Maine’s fisheries biologists who work with the hatcheries to stock many of Maine’s lakes and ponds. Gregory Burr is one of those biologists.
Burr said, “Today we are boat stocking landlocked salmon in the waters of Mount Desert Island. We want to get them out into deeper water and away from avian and inshore predators as well as fish predators that may be in the shallow waters.”
Burr, along with fisheries biologist Jake Scoville met up with Dave Marsanskis, the Grand Lake Stream Fish Hatchery Supervisor who drove the truck filled with Salmon to stock them in Jordan Pond and Eagle Lake in Acadia Park.
Marsanskis said they trap the adults in West grand Lake, fertilize the eggs down at the hatchery and it takes about 18 months to get to the point we are at right now. We provide salmon fisheries in places that would not normally have salmon to fish for.
Most of the stocking the department of inland fisheries and wildlife does is in the springtime.
Biologist Jake Scoville said, “Every lake is different and they don’t want to just put every species of fish in the lake and hope for the best. It’s kind of a balancing act especially if there are multiple lakes in the area that you may be able to select this one for Brook trout and this one for salmon and this one for lake trout so, there are a few factors on what species of fish that do we stock.”
Burr said, “there are a lot of anglers out there that love to fish and our jobs are to create the best fishing opportunities possible for the people of the state of Maine.”