Angler survey aimed at improving brook trout industry

FARMINGTON – A little more than a year ago, a local hotel owner put together the perfect fishing package: rooms, transportation to popular brook trout lakes, access to guides, everything included. The state of Maine has the largest population of the fish, a favorite of anglers, and the owner thought the package would be a great draw for out-of-state fishermen.

Instead, he got practically no takers.

Marc Edwards, at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, believes that the hotel ownership could have saved time, advertising money and aggravation if they had more information about their market. A recently-completed survey of anglers, both in state and out of state, looks to provide business owners, people in the tourist industry and guides with that information.

The year-long survey was conducted by the extension and the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, with assistance from Maine guides. Using IFW’s database of online fishing registrations, the extension sent out roughly 40,000 surveys, using specialized software.

Edwards noted that the survey was aimed at directly useful information, where the anglers were coming from, where they were going, where they stayed, rather than academic information.

“This was really research that guides, tourism folks and IFW can use,” Edwards said. “It can really guide us to the reality of things out there, beyond our perceptions.”

Most out-of-state guides, for instance, are coming from New England, rather than the mid-Atlantic states like Edwards and others had guessed. Only a tiny fraction stay at hotels, most choosing the spend time in camps. The “hardcore anglers” rarely use the services of guides, prefer catch-and-release waters and prefer waters regulated for fly fishing.

Forty-three percent of Maine residents fish for brook trout more than other kind of fish. For non-residents, 31 percent seek brook trout, second-most popular to small mouth bass.

Edwards noted that the research revealed two possibilities; trying to improve the state’s market share of brook trout fishing for the hardcore anglers and improving efforts to reach new anglers.

“This is an incredible resource that’s under utilized,” Edwards said.

“Maine is the only state with extensive intact populations of wild, self-reproducing brook trout in lakes and ponds, including some lakes over 5,000 acres in size,” Forrest Bonney, brook trout expert and former IFW biologist, wrote in the report on the survey. “Maine’s lake and pond brook trout resources are the ‘jewel of the eastern range’.”

Edwards said he’d like to see another survey conducted in five years or so, to see how things have changed. Guides and others dependent upon the tourist industry are constantly changing and evolving. The IFW is still working on the Wild Brook Trout Initiative, a program designed to elevate the state and national awareness of fishing opportunities in Maine.

The UMaine Extension, Edwards noted, was eager to get the survey results into the hands of people that could make use of the information.

“This is what we do here,” he said. “This is a direct result of the needs of people in the community.”

Edwards will present the results of the survey to the public tomorrow, April 30 at 6 p.m., at the UMaine Extension offices on Front Street in Farmington. For more information, please contact Edwards at 778-4650.