Bookmark & share:

E-mail this page E-mail a letter to the editor Reader Comments (below)

George Smith

Given our predilection to spend our time and energy in areas that we enjoy, we often trample and harm them and ruin the experience.

Because fishing is on my mind this month and that's how I choose to spend much of my time, let's use that as an example.

Moose Pond in Mount Vernon is a small, completely undeveloped jewel that once held huge largemouth bass. Without drive-in access, a 200-yard pathway over private land gets you to the shore where a handful of canoes are stored.

I clearly remember a day in the 1970s when I took a photo of a husband and wife with a stringer of five huge largemouth bass they had caught in Moose Pond. They stopped by the house to show me, and the photo appeared in The Maine Sportsman magazine.

They were so proud and I was happy for them. I used to catch huge bass there too, and outdoor writer Ken Allen often mentioned the pond as one of the best places to fish in central Maine.

Alas, there are no huge bass left in the pond. Those five bass that I photographed probably totaled 150 years of age. It takes a long time to grow a big fish.

In the "good old days" most of us simply didn't know enough about the need to leave those big fish in the water.

We loved Moose Pond to death.

Transition to the north woods, where -- since river driving ended -- logging roads have provided easy access to nearly every small pond of native brook trout. Most have now been fished out.

A favorite old-time legislator once lamented to me that the trout fishing in his boyhood pond was gone. "Why, we used to hike in there and get our limit every time," he said. "We could each keep 25 fish."

"Yes," I answered. "And that's why there are no trout left. You caught and kept them all!"

Two weeks ago I fished the Leaf River in the far reaches of northern Quebec. It takes a two-hour commercial flight followed by a 21/2-hour float plane trip to get to Leaf River Camps, and there are no other camps on the entire 60 miles of river we fished.

In a single day, you may catch more than 100 brook trout between 2 and 4 pounds. That is more quality trout than I will catch in a lifetime in Maine. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of 2-pound trout I've caught in my 50 plus years of fishing here.

What's the difference between Maine and northern Quebec?

The Leaf River combines difficult access, very limited fishing pressure and catch-and-release rules.

Maine's best trout waters are easily accessible, heavily fished and allow anglers to keep and eat those native and wild trout. And we're loving those ponds and fish to death.

Thankfully, most of us have adopted the catch-and-release ethic -- or there might not be any fish left of any size.

Before the consumptive crowd jumps on me, let me confess that I eat a few wild brook trout from Sourdahunk Lake every summer. That lake -- easily accessible and fished heavily -- may be the exception to the rule because it has so much good spawning habitat that fish populations remain strong and a five-fish daily bag limit has had no negative effects.

But it's not only those who consume a resource who are ruining our special places.

The last time I hiked Katahdin, I saw at least six piles of toilet paper -- used -- along the trail. Hikers trample the trails, cause erosion, litter the mountain, and crowd our highest peak. If you are seeking solitude, this is not the mountain for you.

Yet at one time, according to the excellent history of Baxter Park written by John Neff, there were more roads and trails to Katahdin than there are today. A revolution in transportation, however, has made the mountain easily accessible to the masses, while in the past only the hardiest hikers could get there.

We're loving Maine's mightiest mountain to death.

The answers will not come easily but we're getting there, leaving fish in the water, carrying out what we carried in, building better trails, putting more of our special places into conservation frameworks and recognizing that too much access can ruin the places and experiences we love.

We don't have to love them to death.

George Smith is executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine. He lives in Mount Vernon and can be reached at george@samcef.org.

Bookmark and share this story: