Jim is a biologist with IFW for the Sebago region and was kind enough to share his and the department’s recent work, including an update on Sebago Lake lake trout and landlocked salmon, and the weir project recently undertaken on the Crooked River.
Sebago Lake
Lake trout were stocked in Sebago during the period of 1972-1982 by IFW and became self-sustaining during the early 1990s. Since that time the population has experienced a drastic explosion and has created a significant strain on other competing species, including landlocked salmon (LLS). As a result various regulations have been implemented over the past couple decades to check the population size of the lake trout, however, they have been met with limited success. As of now the lake trout population is threatening a collapse of the smelt and salmon populations.
There are several challenges to lake trout population management including:
Summer depth protection from anglers (the fish are retreating too deep into the lake and below the depth at which most anglers actively target fish);
An increase in catch and release philosophies and practices by anglers;
Climate change creating a shorter ice fishing season during which times lake trout are actually at depths more conducive to anglers, and an increase in hotter days in the summer during which the fish are in deep water.
While IFW has been working to find the right regulations to more effectively manage the lake trout population, there has been a significant increase in the lake trout population with a close correlation in declining LLS catch rates, size, quality and condition. 2020 regulations will institute a no bag limit on lake trout under 26” in the hopes of finally cutting into the population size.
On the plus side there is great lake trout fishing to be had during ice fishing. Jim mentioned an instance where 6 anglers reported catching 90 lake trout in a period of 5-6 hours of fishing!
Crooked River Weir
As many of you know, Sebago TU partnered with Jim and IFW on this project to count LLS as they passed through the weir on their way to spawning grounds.
The weir was checked every other week and there was a total of 1,828 LLS that passed. Of those only 8 were stocked hatchery fish. The LLS ranged in age from 3 to 9+ years with an average length of 18 inches and weight of 1.77lbs. Jim did note there were a high amount of predator and hook injuries on the fish that were counted.
While counting the fish at the weir, 500 LLS were tagged by biologists with the hope that we can further learn about their survival rate and spawning/migration patterns over the coming years. Stay tuned!
Of course more than the above was discussed and shared during Jim’s talk at our October meeting and this is intended in no way to be a comprehensive summary. If this was interesting to you and you’d like to continue learning more, please come join us at our November 19th meeting in Portland and consider becoming a member of Sebago TU - we’d love to have you!