At first there was a little scarring showing up on adult fish. And then there was a lot. In a few years, the traditional salmon fishery in the Belgrade Lakes was gone and a new fishery took over.
Pike.
The voracious invasive fish eats anything and everything. It eats all of the smelt. It eats young salmon and trout. And it eats adult fish as well.
Scientists could not get rid of the pike once it was in Long Lake and the Belgrades, but it was relatively new on the scene and they didn’t know much about them. Now they have learned enough to know that Sebago may be heading for trouble.
Pike have been in Sebago for a few years now too. But recently fishing guides and regular anglers are reporting an increase in scarring on big salmon, a typical characteristic of when the pike population is exploding and they are trying to eat the big fish.
The salmon fishery in Sebago is the best it has been in nearly a decade. With lake trout reduced somewhat and the return of the smelt — salmon’s primary food source — the fish have gotten big, fat and plentiful.
Sebago is one of four lakes in Maine that have an indigenous salmon strain. Most of the salmon in the state’s second largest lake are wild native Sebago salmon. That’s why it’s even more important to get a handle on what’s going on with the pike, according to Jim Pellerin, fisheries biologist for the region that includes Sebago.
Biologists recently started collecting pike samples through electrofishing, a process in which they use electric current to stun the fish so they can easily catch them. It is not lethal, although the scientists needed to kill the pike they caught to take the measurements they needed.
Pellerin said they plan to do more sampling to see if they can figure out what’s going on with the pike population, especially what they are eating. Biologists may do other studies, depending on what they find with this sampling.
There is no size or bag limit on pike, and anglers come to the big lake to fish for them specifically, so the state is trying to figure out how to manage them so they don’t take over but not wipe them out.
The pike spawn in the Songo River and feed on spawning smelt, Pellerin said. The pike are most voracious right after spawning, which is when the baby salmon are dropping into the Crooked River and heading toward the lake.
Pellerin said he wants to do sampling at the peak of the migration to Songo. Once he sees the data, it’s possible regulations could be proposed for next year.
