There is a lot in the news this week about the beginning of the project to restore the Penobscot River with the removal of the Great Works Dam. Designed to help restore our native runs of Atlantic Salmon and other sea run fish. A word of caution, the track record of dam removal in Maine has not been good for recreational fisheries in spite of all of the promises and press releases.
Before the Edwards Dam was taken out in Augusta it was a great place early in the season and again in September to catch truly big stripers. One of my best striper fishing memories is of fishing there and having to change the tippet on the fly line to 20 pound test because the fish were breaking me steadily on 15 pound test. After the removal of the dam the big stripers pretty much left the Maine coast and the entire run has seen a steady decline since. The number of working striper guides on the lower Kennebec has dwindled accordingly.
Above the dam was an outstanding smallmouth bass fishery that is now also very much diminished along with a brown trout fishery right in Waterville. There were a few guides working in that stretch now mostly gone. To replace these fisheries we now have alewife runs in the millions of fish (they are netted for lobster bait) and supposedly a shad run in the Kennebec, although when I asked some who fish for them the numbers actually caught are far below 100 fish. It also appears that the numbers of sturgeon is up significantly. Not a recreational success yet.
The Saint George my home river is a parallel to the Kennebec stripers in decline, bass holding their own and one bright spot an excellent, if crowded, put and take trout fishery at the site of the new dam at the foot of Sennebec Pond. Our production of alewives is amazing.
So while I view dam removal as a potentially good thing for the environment there is not much of a track record for improving recreational fishing. Mark me down as still waiting patiently for the promised benefits.
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