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More Than Luck Needed to Tackle Northern Pike Problem

May 21, 2008 - SEBAGO LAKE -- The monster pike Portland fisherman Eliot Stanley pulled from Sebago Lake earlier this month was a lucky catch, of sorts.

It was lucky Stanley was able to hook the 41-inch pike at all.

The only way the salmon fisherman could have hooked the 17.5-pound pike, an invasive species in Maine waters, with the light tackle he was using (a 6-pound leader line meant for a 7-pound salmon, at best) was to hook the pike in the side of the mouth.

And that's what happened.

"If that pike swallowed the bait, that line would be cut on that mouth full of teeth. They are very, very sharp and on the back of the throat," said regional fisheries biologists Francis Brautigam.

The moral to this, literally, big fish tale is not that Sebago is now home to monster pike capable of eating ducks, loon chicks and toy dogs. (Still, you'd better not take your chihuahua swimming there.)

The moral to the story is that fishermen are not going after northern pike in Sebago.

Did you miss that? Because it seems up until now that fishermen have.

"It was on the back burner until last week," Sebago Anglers Association president Don Allen said of the pike problem.

Until now, fishermen have not been targeting these non-native fish that were discovered in Sebago in 2003.

"You need a steel leader, just like you use for saltwater. Nobody in our club fishes like that," Allen said.

The first northern pike found in Sebago was pulled out five years ago by biologists, who now dread the threat this illegally introduced fish poses to the lake's native landlocked salmon populations. The salmon draw fishermen from across New England and beyond.

Northern pike in Sebago means less food in the lake for the native salmon -- as well as, eventually, fewer salmon, said John Boland, the state's director of fisheries.

Consider this: Stanley's pike had a 13-inch salmoninside its stomach, virtually whole and intact.

Yet since 2003, Brautigam said he hasn't heard of many pike being caught in Sebago.

Maybe because they haven't been.

Carroll Cutting, who sells fishing tackle and bait at Jordan Store on the west shore of Sebago, said if fishermen ask for tackle to land northern pike, they are heading somewhere other than Sebago to fish.

"We carry 18-pound and 27-pound (line). Of course, the terminal leader is lighter and may be 10 or 12 pounds if they are fishing for togue. That wouldn't hold up against a pike," Cutting said. "If they are going to Sabattus or North Pond or Great Pond in Belgrade, and they are fishing for them, yeah, those are the people that buy that type of gear."

Not that fishermen could remove all the northern pike from Sebago Lake anyway. They could just help hold them at bay.

Brautigam said at this point, there is nothing biologists can do to rid the lake of the monster fish in the lake.

"They're here for the long haul," he said.

Boland said even if fishermen fish for and catch pike in Sebago now, the pike population will grow.

And Sebago, with its vast deep water, is not even prime pike habitat.

Boland said hope still remains for Trickey Pond, where biologists hope to stop pike from moving up the watershed and into this tiny salmon pond by installing a fish barricade this spring.

But the future for much of the Sebago watershed looks dismal, he said.

In Long Lake, which also drains into Sebago, Boland said it's only a matter of time before the pike get up in there.

"If they become established in Long Lake -- and they probably will -- it will be a pike factory," Boland said.

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming, May 18, 2008, Maine Sunday Telegram


Lakes: Long Lake, Sebago Lake
Regions: Sebago


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