Recent rain has raised brooks and small streams, good news for open-water anglers planning to fish for sea-run brook trout (also called "salters") for the next 10 days -- probably the only game in town until ice-out.

As strange as it may sound, roaring freshets bring these anadromous fish from estuaries into fresh water. Folks in the know take advantage.

About 25 years ago before Tom Seymour and I had met, this full-time Waldo writer wrote this high-water salter philosophy in a magazine article, and to be honest, it struck me as malarkey.

However, we later met, and this perspicacious angler took me fishing in a small brook during early April's high water, making me a believer within 15 minutes, fishing a pool beside a very major highway of all things.

Salter fishing can be a tough sport, though. One day, an angler may hit a flowing water and strike out. A day later, salters rush upstream from estuaries or bays and offer blistering action -- despite cold, gelid currents.

Here's a common question about sea-run brookies:

How do you find waters that hold good populations of them?

It's easier than folks might think. Any river, stream or brook that runs into estuaries, bays or open ocean and has brook trout will have sea-runs. Allegedly, larger estuarine habitat produces more salters than open ocean.

The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's regional fisheries biologists can tell folks which brooks running into the salt have brook trout, and that's the key -- a non-anadromous brookie population to begin with.

DIF&W biologists in Region B (547-4035) have superb data on brookies in Mid-coast Maine brooks and streams. These fellows may not know which ones have salters, but they know which places support brookies.

As a general rule, many brookies go into estuaries or bays to escape warm water at the height of summer, and then, the food-rich, cool saltwater holds them much of the year.

They run back into fresh water to forage in early spring and to spawn in fall. Scud bugs and damselfly nymphs often fill salter stomachs now.

Scientists have no idea why some brookies don't migrate into the salt when others do. It's probably genetics coupled with opportunity. Hostile conditions such as lack of food and too warm water encourage the migration.

I have better luck fishing for salters in small brooks and streams and do far less well in rivers, which has led to Allen's salter theory -- easily arguable. Long ago, anglers fished salters out of many Maine rivers but ignored tiny waters. Exceptions exist, but don't they always.

I've caught plenty of river salters in Canada, and they normally run large -- fish described in pounds instead of inches. Salters in Maine's small brooks normally run about two inches longer than the ones without seafaring tendencies. In short, if a brook produces 6- to 8-inch brookies, the sea-run trout grow to 8- to 10-inches in estuaries and bays.

The first sea-run brookie I ever caught came from Dyer River just south of the Sheepscot Road, a complete accident. One night three decades ago, I was dipping sea-run rainbow smelts from this tiny river and landed the brookie, which was no larger than the smelts.

The Dyer salter proved typical of sea-run brookies -- pewter-colored with pale red spots and even paler aureoles.

Naturally, the male has more colorful spots, aureoles and flanks than the female -- but still subdued.

All the summer and fall rain we've had in the last four years have increased the salter population dramatically, according to Bill Woodward, a Region B DIF&W fisheries biologist.

Seymour agrees with Woodward. Tom has fished for salters from Penobscot Bay to Washington County for 55 years and for the last two decades has kept meticulous creel records for DIF&W.

Heavy rain increases trout production big time in these small waters, and Woodward and Seymour have noticed.

Recently, Seymour told me he has never had better salter fishing than last year, and he couldn't wait for the first week of April this season. He sounded as excited as a little kid, headed to the beach.

• • •

Maine faces environmental threats in the form of invasive species such as northern pike, black crappies and black bass that compete with trout and salmon in waters once the domain of salmonids.

With age and hopefully wisdom, though, I've noticed a truth about the world. When folks think they have problems, they need not look far to see others in a far worse situation, as a recent blurb on the Internet showed.

Pythons are giving Florida officials fits, particularly in the Everglades. Here's the story:

Between 1996 and 2006 -- not counting previous years -- folks have legally brought 99,000 pythons into the United States, thanks mostly to the pet trade. To make matters worse, pythons breed easily in captivity, so a hatchling usually costs the customer about $20, an attractive price.

The pet python population grows.

Even if owners must register snakes with state officials to keep track of the reptiles, it's impossible to keep an eye on 99,000-plus critters. And, not everyone warms up to his or her pet as it gets larger.

How large?

Pythons live 30 years, can grow to 20-foot lengths and can reach 200 pounds. That's a big reptile all right, too big for an apartment or small ranch.

As irresponsible as this may sound, python owners sometimes release these snakes into the wild, and in cold climates -- say in Maine -- most of them die over the winter. However, some Floridians have left pythons in the Everglades, where they are thriving.

Our images of this species often include a sedentary creature lying on a tree limb, but they can travel 1.6 miles per day on land, making them adept at spreading their population.

These snakes are eating endangered species and pets, and recently, a necropsy of an Everglades python revealed two, 5-foot alligators in its stomach. That blurb makes me glad that I'm considerably longer than five feet.

I have occasionally fished in the Everglades and plan to do so again.

A 20-foot snake makes our invasive-fish problems look far less acute, but these words come from a Sagittarian, a sun sign made up of natural born optimists. If someone sent us a carton of horse manure, we'd figure the mail carrier lost the horse in transit.

Ken Allen, of Belgrade Lakes, is a writer, editor and photographer.