Where Baitfish Don't Belong

The other bill, introduced on behalf of the Dud Dean Angling Society (DDAS), would ban just four of the 23 legal species of baitfish-the ones the scientific literature lists as alien to the state. These are the spottail, blackchin and emerald shiners, and the eastern silvery minnow. Emerald shiners are of special concern because they are primary vectors of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS), a devastating fish disease now established in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River System.

"A few ice fishers and bait dealers have been stirring the pot on the Internet, getting everyone all charged up," says Corson. "These guys don't know what the hell they're talking about, and no one on our side is willing to get into that kind of a fight with them. We haven't heard a peep from open-water bait fishers."

The noise from Maine carried all the way to New York City, and on March 13, 2007 The Wall Street Journal, in typical fashion, spun the baitfish controversy into what it called a "class war" between native, blue-collar ice fishermen and rich, YUPPY flyrodders "mostly 'from away.'"

Whipping ice anglers into a froth of fear, loathing and paranoia has been Maine's property-rights community, which has seized on the proposed legislation as a means of vilifying those who value native ecosystems  — i.e., the ubiquitous, liberal "greenies." SAM, it alleges, has been infiltrated by "environmental extremists," "eco-fundamentalists" and "fly fishing elitists." SAM, TU and the "Duds" (DDAS) have conspired to push traditional anglers out of the way "so they can have the resource all to themselves."Sponsors and supporters of the bills who once lived or were educated in other states are "invasive species themselves." The legislation is "incrementalism," "a government jackboot in the door" and "the first salvo" in a meticulously planned offensive to ban all ice fishing. . . .

Among the more prolific of Maine's conspiracy theorists is one Alfred Moore of Milbridge, who spends his days crusading on Internet comment boxes, blogs, forums and chat rooms against what he calls "the Environmental Industry" (always capitalized). According to one of his daily warnings, the "anti-live bait legislation could ban use of live bait forever." He defines brook trout as "the 'new' Atlantic salmon" and proclaims that "Environmental Industry groups are already buying up land to 'protect the natives,'" which he expects will soon be listed under the Endangered Species Act, first in the long list of federal statutes he detests.

Similar rhetoric issues from bait dealers, particularly their chief spokesman-John Whalen, a former state game warden and Maine's only propagator of alien emerald shiners. "Ethically, the fly fishermen don't like ice fishing," he told The Wall Street Journal. "They view it as consumptive, removing 'resource' from the environment." Whalen defines advocates of the baitfish legislation as "ring-tailed barstards [sic]" out to "eliminate ice fishing and general law fishing opportunities and to just screw with traditional Maine fishers."

A mantra from Moore, Whalen and the rest of the Maine anti-bait-reg lobby is that there's no proof that spottail, blackchin and emerald shiners and the Eastern silvery minnow are non-natives. That's true, but also irrelevant because a baitfish doesn't have to be alien to ruin a state's fishery — it only has to be alien to the body of water in which it is unleashed. Witness, for example, the fate of the brookies and bluebacks that used to abound in Big Reed Pond. Moreover, the burden of proof that these baitfish are alien should not be on those who seek to protect wild trout. The burden of proof that these baitfish are native (and none exists) should be on those who want to risk seeding them throughout the state.

In the last decade or so the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has done a much better job of managing the national treasure it has been entrusted with. Its brook trout specialist, Forrest Bonney, reports a significant increase in the percentages of older and bigger fish. Draconian bag limits-down to one fish on some ponds-have done wonders.

Thanks to scientists like Bonney and fisheries chief Boland, Maine also has some excellent management policies in place. It's just that, with so much political heat from special-interest groups like bait dealers, those policies don't always get implemented. Considering all the department's talk about the dangers of alien fish, you'd think it would want to prohibit use of at least the four baitfish it believes are alien to the state. But it testified against the DDAS bill, and, on the department's advice, a legislative committee recommended that only the blackchin shiner be banned. "Why?" I asked Boland.

Boland is a very good biologist, but his answer made no sense to me. He explained that the 23 species of legal baitfish are "extremely difficult to identify," that "we don't have reliable records for their distribution," and that "it wouldn't make a lot of sense to saddle the wardens with this kind of enforcement." I can't think of three better reasons to restrict the use of all live baitfish in and near wild trout water until biologists figure out what lives where.