To date we have good fishing information on Rangeley and Aziscohos lakes with scattered reports coming in from other waters around the region. At Rangeley Lake our clerk Liz Studdert has checked more than a hundred anglers who have kept 19 salmon and released 51 legal-size salmon and 85 sublegal salmon. We're encouraging anglers to keep their one salmon at Rangeley because growth rates are declining - a moderate reduction in the number of salmon will result in better growth rates in the future. Anglers at Rangeley Lake also kept 12 brook trout and released 23 legal-size and 2 sublegal trout. The biggest salmon checked at Rangeley to date was 4 pounds 7 ounces; the biggest trout was 1 pound 3 ounces.

At Aziscohos Lake, Liz has checked 46 anglers who kept 15 salmon and released 12 legal-size and 65 sublegal salmon; they kept seven brook trout and released seven legal-size and 15 sublegal trout. The biggest salmon checked at Aziscohos to date was 2 pounds 7 ounces; the biggest brook trout was 1 pound 3 ounces.

We also checked a 3 pound 12 ounce brook trout from Mooselookmeguntic and have reports of many large, fat salmon being caught already this spring. The liberalized salmon regulation (3 salmon limit, 12-inch minimum length, only one greater than 16 inches) at Mooselook is apparently paying off with increased growth rates.

In an era when catch and release is promoted, it sometimes confuses anglers when we encourage them to keep more fish. However, at Rangeley and Mooselookmeguntic lakes, there is a lot of natural reproduction that is resulting in more salmon than there are smelts to feed them. The same situation occurs at Big Kennebago Lake, where we have also liberalized the brook trout regulations in an effort to reduce their numbers and improve growth rates. That said, we generally support the catch and release ethic, which works well on most waters.