Worried that the once-ubiquitous fish could face extinction, the Department of Marine Resources began stocking alewives in the watershed in 1985, going so far as to put fish in tanks on trucks to bypass the dams, which prevented fish passage.

Trap and truck.  Truck stocking.  In the case of the Sebasticook (lake) we began in 1985.  Get alewives from a source such as the Brunswick fishway on the Andro, put them in a stocking truck, drive them to Sebasticook Lake, dump them out and repeat.  When I started w/ MDMR we were truck stocking from the “trans-vac” installed at Edwards dam in Augusta.  Essentially, and literally “sucking” the fish from the river below, spitting them into a sorting tank, dipping them out of the sorting tank, and counting them into the stocking truck tank 1, 2, 3, 4, …….1,499, 1,500.  Close the tank and drive like hell.  n

No vacuum.  That ended in 2008.  Only trap and truck.  Currently @ Lockwood (Kennebec) Brunswick fishway (Androscoggin) and now the milford fishlift on penobscot