I’m a lifelong fisherman. My father and I started fishing together in the early 1970s, and we’ve been at it ever since. We’ll both fish for anything with fins, but our favorite is wild brook trout in the streams of Maine’s north woods. One of our favorite places, Cold Stream, is only an hour up Route 201 from my home in Skowhegan. We have years of Cold Stream memories: times when trout hit on every cast, the calls of winter wrens echoing off the gorge walls, crawling through blowdowns to get to a hidden hole and the lynx that walked by as we ate lunch.
As a biologist, I know the Cold Stream watershed is special. In my career I have worked on trout waters throughout the Northeast, especially Maine, and the work I have done in the Cold Stream watershed has been some of my most treasured. As recently as 2013 I was surveying ponds on Cold Stream tributaries that had never been sampled by a biologist before, finding “new” populations of native brook trout and remembering old angler’s trails I came across for my next trip with Dad. The watershed contains 15 ponds, 12 with wild brook trout. The last stocking event in the watershed was in 1954. The stream — where Dad and I prefer to fish — is full of trout from its source at Cold Stream Pond to its mouth in the Kennebec Gorge. When the Indian Pond hydro-electric dam was relicensed, state biologists identified protection of Cold Stream as critical for the future of the brook trout fisheries in the Kennebec River by tracking radio-tagged trout that swam up Cold Stream from the Kennebec to spawn. Colleagues in the Wildlife Division of the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife identified 3,000 acres of deer yard near the confluence of Cold Stream and the Kennebec as some of the most important in Somerset County.
On Friday, thanks to nearly 10 years of work by my former colleagues at DIF&W and in the Bureau of Parks and Lands, Trout Unlimited, the Trust for Public Land and many other partners, more than 8,000 acres of the Cold Stream watershed was transferred to the state of Maine. It will be managed specifically to protect and enhance its brook trout and deer habitat. Seven native brook trout ponds and the entire length of Cold Stream will be permanently protected and open for public access — including a bunch of favorite fishing holes Dad and I won’t say too much about. This is the best kind of cooperative conservation: a project that keeps forests as forests; guarantees access for anglers, hunters, hikers and paddlers; protects and enhances habitat; and allows for sustainable timber harvest.
Projects such as this are only possible because of Maine voters having consistently supported the Land for Maine’s Future bonds and to legislators who helped save the LMF program in January. Some $1.5 million from LMF were released for the project last month. These state funds triggered the release of $6 million from the federal Forest Legacy program to complete the purchase.
Maine’s congressional delegation has given critical support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which pays for the Forest Legacy program. Sen. Susan Collins pushed her Senate colleagues to support full funding. Rep. Chellie Pingree stood up for LWCF in budget negotiations in the House. Sen. Angus King, a tireless LMF supporter as governor, helped colleagues understand the importance of federal funds to help states protect critical public lands. Rep. Bruce Poliquin recently signed onto a letter to his colleagues supporting LWCF.
Before Dad and I head north for some spring fishing, I want to thank everyone involved: the Maine Legislature for saving the Land for Maine’s Future Program, Maine’s federal delegation for supporting the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the dozens of people who helped make this project happen. I invite you to explore this special area. As of today, it’s yours.
Joe Dembeck lives in Skowhegan. He has worked as a fisheries biologist since 1996, including seven years with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. He currently works as the executive director of the Somerset County Soil and Water Conservation District and serves on the board of Somerset Woods Trustees.