I have been watching the Atlantic Restoration for many years now and have been very doubtful that they will ever come back. At one point several years ago I would see them while out guiding for bass but then I just stopped seeing them. I felt all this money going into restoring them might be a waste but last year I saw two adult salmon in September and saw juveniles last spring swim under the boat, this gave me some hope!

Here is a Article By Ted Williams, that will add to that hope.

Unlike most New England rivers, the East Machias River never quite lost its salmon. Every fall, a small remnant population swam upstream, against waters that tumble and curl 36 miles from Crawford Lake to the coast, through balsam-scented boreal forest where moose splash and eastern coyotes sing. The Downeast Salmon Federation’s weathered, cedar-shingled Peter Gray Hatchery sits along the bank, just below a narrow stretch of rapids that empties into the river’s wide, flat tidal reaches.

The hatchery building was an abandoned power station — infested with rats, windows broken, officially designated by the town of East Machias as a “slum and blight site” — before the federation moved in. Now, instead of rats, the place is full of salmon in various stages of development, swimming around in a couple of dozen tanks through which unfiltered river water flows. The damp air always has a fishy scent.

To Read the full story: https://downeast.com/land-wildlife/saving-atlantic-salmon/