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Rangeley's Lost Trout

March 18, 2008 - The little blueback trout survived the Ice Age, but it was no match for sport fishermen. Rangeley's reputation in the late nineteenth century as a world-class angling destination wasn't just savvy marketing. The lakes region had the actual trophy fish to back up its claim as the "Land of Fishing Legends."

In 1886 an angler on Mooselookmeguntic caught a monster brook trout measuring 26.5 inches and weighing a whopping 12.5 pounds. For many years afterwards, this leviathan held the world record for the largest brookie ever caught by an angler. Why did Rangeley brook trout grow so big? They were on a power diet of sorts.

Originally the Rangeley watershed was home to two noteworthy coldwater species, brook trout and blueback trout. Actually a subspecies of arctic char, the little blueback - Saivelinus alpinus oquassa - rarely reached more than ten inches in length and served as the preferred prey species for large brookies. (Their Latin name, incidentally, commemorates their discovery in 1854 In Lake Oquassa, which was Rangeley Lake's Abenaki name.) Bluebacks lived in deep water for most of the year, only venturing into the shallows in October to spawn (when they were netted, trapped, jigged, speared, and otherwise molested by fishermen).

Unfortunately, the emergence of the Rangeley region as a renowned angling destination - drawing hundreds of wellheeled anglers from cities up and down the East Coast - meant doom for the bluebacks. As more and more anglers took to the waters, the brook trout suffered (the daily bag limit was an incredible fifty pounds per person).

In order to keep the fishing experience worth traveling for, the Oquossoc Angling Association introduced landocked salmon to the lakes in 1875 (rainbow smelt were also brought in as another forage fish). For the bluebacks, the ecologic effect was disastrous. In addition to facing another plankton-eating competitor in smelt, they now found themselves serving as food for two predatory species. By the early 1900s the native blueback trout of the Rangeley Lakes was extinct.

But the story ends on a hopeful note. Despite humanity's best efforts to make trouble for them, a renegade population of bluebacks and their other arctic char cousins survives in Maine. According to an "Arctic Char Management Plan" prepared in November 2001 by Frank 0. Frost of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wiidiife, twelve lakes in Maine - near the headwaters of the St. John, Union, and Penobscot watersheds - still harbor relic populations of char, including bluebacks.

Floods Pond in Otis is one such outpost, and it is likely that char have survived there because the pond serves as one of Bangor's municipal water supplies and is off-limits to fishing. Nine other char waters are open to anglers, however - from Black and Debouille ponds in Aroostook County, to Enchanted in Somerset County.

"The most endearing angling quality of arctic char in Maine," writes Frost "is the opportunity to catch a sometimes highly colored, native, and very uncommon fish in remote environments."

It's not every day that you can drop a line in the water and hook a piece of history.


SOURCE: DOWN EAST

DATE: 04-01-2008

Lakes: Mooselookmeguntic &Cupsuptic
Regions: Rangeley


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