SUN JOURNAL • January 27, 2024
There was a day when an ice fisherman didn’t concern himself much with the kind of live bait used to entice a landlocked salmon or a trout under the ice. You always used live smelts if you could find them. Not so today. There are live bait regulations galore. And, unless to want to get crossways with the law, you really want to familiarize yourself with the many varieties of live bait species before you venture forth, especially if you trap your own live bait. There are only 17 species of live bait that are legal to use in Maine. The live bait regulations are there for a purpose, however, to protect our precious sport fishery from invasive species getting in waters where they don’t belong. ~ V. Paul Reynolds