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Cooperation Would be Beneficial for Maine Anglers

March 14, 2010 - BELGRADE LAKES -- In my Feb. 7 column, I covered the 15th Sportsman's Congress, hosted by the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine on Jan. 22. This annual meeting of Maine's key outdoor leaders gave me hope and optimism about the future of this state's outdoor sports, particularly fishing.



Folks such as Dr. Kenneth Elowe and other officials from the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife promised a new age was dawning between SAM and this agency, leaving me guardedly optimistic. Since that memorable meeting, IFW has continued on its path for more cooperation with SAM.


A quick digression illustrates what this collaboration means to this state's sporting community. In the 1980s, the Maine Bowhunting Association was getting nowhere with its efforts in the Maine Legislature. In the 1990s, though, the MBA hooked up with SAM, and together they approached IFW and achieved the following -- just to name three items:


• A three-month bowhunting whitetail season in parts of the state where most of the hunting population lives.


• The opportunity to shoot multiple deer in suburban, exurban and urban areas where they had overpopulated woodlands.


• A guaranteed, 30-day, statewide archery deer season.


Before then, bowhunters often had a statewide season of less than 30 days when the calendar fell wrong and the firearms hunt started in the last week of October. The legislature changed the time frame so the archery hunt could start in the last week of September and give archers a full season.


Now, let's jump to 2010. SAM's Fishing Initiative Committee (SAM-FIC) has many workable ideas, with a sincere desire to achieve the following:


• Improve Maine's salmonid fishing.


• Offer more opportunities to the angling public.


• Increase angler numbers through marketing and better fishing.


SAM and IFW's alliance creates a win-win situation because it will increase angler participation, meaning more license money, as well as better angling for the public.


"One way to achieve quality fishing in suitable waters is by implementing regulations, but SAM-FIC isn't pushing regulations for regulations' sake," said Harry Vanderweide, a mover and shaker in SAM-FIC.


Vanderweide explained that regulations -- particularly ones dictating tackle choice -- would be a last resort to achieve quality fishing in suitable waters.


In the 2000s, bulletin boards on the Internet gave folks a platform to bash IFW officials at every turn, but such negativity has generated a quiet revolt against activists who complain but offer no workable solutions palatable to the masses.


Criticism aimed at IFW ignores two facts about Maine:


• This state has more waters with fly-fishing-only regulations than any other state or province in North America, and our definition of fly-fishing is brilliant. The weight of the line must propel the fly -- not the weight of the lure or bobber propelling the line. This wording eliminates options such as a spinning rod and bobber that makes a mockery of fly-fishing-only.


• What other state or province on the continent has a smaller general daily and possession bag limit for trout and salmon than Maine does? I cannot find a single one with a general bag limit smaller or even equal to ours. If readers know of one, please let me know.

Our general daily and possession limits on lake trout, landlocked salmon, brown trout and rainbow trout are two fish per day or two fish in possession -- say, two salmon, or one brown and one rainbow, or any aggregate of two.


For brook trout (and splake), the general daily and possession limits are five brookies statewide in rivers, streams and brooks. But in ponds and lakes in Androscoggin, Cumberland, Franklin, Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Oxford, Sagadahoc, Waldo and York counties, the daily and possession limits are two brookies (and splake).


The other six counties allow five brookies per angler as a daily and possession limit in lakes and ponds.


Sure, in suitable habitats, Maine should initiate more catch-and-release waters and slot limits, two options that will increase in this state. One way or the other, though, Maine has entered a new era, one building on quality fishing regulations already in place.


The depressive mentality that dominated Maine's political fishing scene through the 2000s has gotten us nowhere. This constant complaining without workable solutions must end.


We must move forward positively and bring average anglers along the way. No one can shove regulations down the public's throat.


The process calls for education, and without it, Mainers -- the consummate practitioners of civil disobedience -- will ignore new regulations.


As former IFW Commissioner Ray Owen showed us in the 1990s, the best path to a bright future begins with making the public a willing partner in the rules-making process. Such a plan worked like gangbusters for Owen. It could happen again in this new atmosphere of cooperation.

by Ken Allen, March 14, 2010, Portland Press Herald

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