Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 8 : Spring 2011 | Page 23

can crush hundreds of thousands of eggs in just
a few steps. Biologists recommend that people
dip smelts from the bank or use common sense
when wading to avoid inadvertently disturbing
eggs.

In recent years, the commercial bait
industry has placed unintended pressure on
some smelt populations. Shortly after the smelts
run in the spring, another fish makes the trip
into Maine’s tributary streams from its normal
habitat. Many of Maine’s streams have large
runs of suckers. Suckers are harvested by using
fixed trap nets for the commercial lobster bait
industry. With lobster bait fetching very high
prices the temptation to push the legal envelope
exists. Improperly set sucker nets can kill gallons
of smelts. One illegally set sucker net in Houlton
last year killed 40 gallons of smelts.

A rampant problem that game wardens
and fisheries biologists are fighting in our state
is that of illegal introduction of fish into waters
where they are not native. This problem usually
centers around highly predatory species such as
pike or bass which can harm cold water game
fish twofold by competing for the same food
and eating juvenile trout and salmon. Recently
illegal introduction of smelt became a problem.
Though smelt are a forage fish, smelt directly
compete with young brook trout for food. An
angler wishing to increase the forage for trophy
brook trout inadvertently destroys the delicate
balance of the food chain actually reducing the
population of trout. Fisheries management is an
intricate science that is best left to professionals
that have dedicated their lives to quality game
fish management. Failure to do so could result
in the destruction of an entire fishery and heavy
fines from the department.

This spring, the Maine Department
of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife asks for your
cooperation to help protect this important
forage fish. In adhering to Maine’s fish and
game laws and reporting violators to your local
game warden through our anonymous hotline
Operation Game Thief (1-800-ALERT US), you
can do your part to ensure the future of Maine’s
fish and wildlife heritage. Remember the actions
of a few can ruin the future of many.

SPRING 2011 Smelt Enforcement 21