When fly-fishermen think of Maine they probably think of brook trout. A beautiful fish, especially in their fall spawning regalia, it prefers our cool weather and small streams and ponds. Brook trout are not really trout at all; they are char, a related family of salmonoids. Brook trout can be identified by dark vermiculation on their backs, red spots with light blue halos on their sides, an orange belly and white leading edges along their lower fins and tail.

According to Iroquois legend, when the Great Spirit Manitou was leading his followers to Happy Hunting Ground he became hungry and he spotted some handsome black trout. When he reached in the water and lifted out a big fish he noted the beauty of the creature and decided to release the great fish. The trout swam off, but with silvery sides and many spots with halos indicating that it had been touched by the Great Manitou. Brook trout became sacred to the Six Nations and they would not eat them.

White men had no such compulsion and through the years, over-fishing has decimated the populations of brook trout. Once abundant all over the Northeast, they now are not easy to find outside of northern and western Maine. Warming climates have also forced them to retreat to small clear and cool headwater streams and pools that remain relatively cool in the summer. In small streams, even mature fish typically remain small while larger fish can be found in the ponds.

Alexander Hamilton was an avid fisherman and in 1827 had been pursuing a huge brook trout on Long Island for four years without success. When the fish was spotted by his lookout on a Sunday morning, Hamilton was called from the sermon and snuck out of the church and finally caught the fish on a fly to the cheers of the congregation. Story has it that the fish established a record at 14.5 pounds. That would not be possible today.

The brook trout is the canary in our waters. They tolerate neither higher temperatures nor pollution and their declining numbers sends a strong message to us. They need our help in restoring their habitat back to the cool and clear of earlier days.

Don Abbott lives in Camden and is a member of the Georges River chapter of Trout Unlimited, georgesrivertu.org.

The Georges River chapter of Trout Unlimited is a local chapter of a national nonprofit organization whose mission is "to conserve, protect and restore North America's coldwater fisheries and their watersheds. Trout Unlimited has 147,000 members across the country. This is the first in a series of articles written by members of GRTU.