After a Seven-Year Ban, Salmon Fishing Returns to Maine:
But the king of all fish has proven vulnerable to manmade meddling. Pollution from paper mills, blasting by logging companies, and dams that impede salmon migration helped slice the Penobscot salmon population to 530 in 2000, from nearly 5,000 20 years ago, said Patrick Keliher, executive director of the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.
Other efforts to restore salmon included restocking fish and tracking them with transponders. An environmental coalition is raising $25 million to buy three dams from a power company, tear down two of them and build a fish bypass around the third.
But while the dam project is expected to restore thousands of salmon, it will take years. And with just over 1,000 salmon currently in the Penobscot, Maine’s largest river, Mr. Keliher said, state biologists felt they could allow limited fishing, with the hope of ultimately resurrecting a sport that once drew millions of tourism dollars into Maine’s economy.
“This is a big balancing act for us,” Mr. Keliher said. “Can we continue to have positive restoration efforts at the same time we’re conducting recreational angling? We’re going to eat the elephant one bite at a time.”
Maine is starting with baby steps: fall fishing, when salmon are smaller; catch-and-release only; no barbs on fishhooks; and no fishing when the water temperature hits 70 degrees because hooked fish recover better in cooler water. Mr. Keliher said each salmon reaching the Veazie Dam, where they are temporarily trapped, will be checked to see if it was hooked and what condition it is in. If the fish seem to withstand the fall season, Maine may allow the more-popular spring fishing.
The restrictions satisfied most environmentalists, said Andrew Goode, board president of the Penobscot River Restoration Project, the coalition buying the dams.
“We’re about restoring the fish, but we’re also trying to get the communities to turn their attention to the river,” said Mr. Goode, who is also vice president for American programs at the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a conservation group. “We’re trying to raise so much money for this project. It’s nice for politicians to see public interest in the river.”
