AUGUSTA, Maine — May 8, 2015 — The Maine elver fishing season is more than halfway done, but the tiny juvenile eels that can provide a year’s worth of income from a 10-week season have been hard to catch.
The season opened March 22 and will close on the last day of May. During that time, fishermen hoped they would catch enough eels to fill the 9,688-pound catch quota allocated to the state by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Of that amount, 2,122 pounds were allocated to fishermen from Maine’s four tribes, with most of it going to the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and 7,566 pounds were allocated to the states approximately 400 licensed non-tribal harvesters.
So far, the fishing hasn’t been good.
With the season about 60 percent complete, harvesters have landed only about 19 percent of the total catch quota. According to the Department of Marine Resources, preliminary reports indicate that through Monday afternoon, total landings throughout the state were just 1,830.49 pounds.