River Herring in Maine

Upon the completion of work for the year at school, I went to Maine for five days over the Memorial Day weekend.

I had made arrangement with the town of Benton’s (next town over from Clinton) Alewife Warden to help out counting fish as they came up the advanced fish lift at the Benton Dam on the Sebasticook River. The warden put me in touch with N. from the Department of Marine Resources.  We made arrangement to meet on Saturday.

When we met, N. gave me a tour of the amazing structure, a model facility that other outfits nationally are emulating.  As of the weekend, 1.6-million have been pushed through for the season. Benton is so proud of the re-establishment  of river herrings that the weekend before, the first Benton Alewife Festival was organized and conducted.

Here are some pictures.

Benton Dam

Every ten minutes, a bucketful of fish gets hoisted up the lift...

...and down this chute.

The river herring squeeze through the barriers...

...and are visable through this viewing chamber.

If a shad is observed, like this one with the tail sticking out to the right, they are personally given the up-and-over.  To date only 26-of these mysterious fish have been observed.

                           
                             The town awards one alewife concession, and this is their operation.

At the far end of the dam is an eel lift. In the small pools are writhing masses of eels awaiting transport up river.

The following morning, I set off for actual surveying, not in the form I had expected. Instead N. wanted me to check whether alewives were pushing through at various fish ladders upstream.

First stop Plymouth in Penobscot County. Plenty of alewives here.

                                                                   Look at them at my feet

Next was the ladder at Stetson, also in Penobscot County. Not nearly as many river herring here, although big water snake sunning at the dam.

See the water snake?

Finally on the day was the ladder at Newport on Sebasticook Lake. Here was a mother lode, chock full of fish. Again, what a facility. They take anadromous restoration very seriously in Maine.

    

The next day, N. had me check three spots downriver from the dam along the Pattee Pond Brook in Winslow. Two of the three spots yielded nothing, the third only one alewife. Two photos of the brook below.

                                         Pattee Pond Brook empties into the Sebasticook

Because of stormy weather that arrived I wasn’t able to do any more surveying.

Fish seen on the weekend included:

American eel
Alewife    (#34)                                                                                                                                                                 
Bluebacked herring  (#35)
American shad     (#36)                                                                                                                   
Carp
White sucker    (#37)     
Smallmouth bass   (#38)
Redbreast sunfish   (#39)  
Yellow perch