Scott Earl Smith - Northern Ontario Field Editor
Scott is a freelance writer and photographer whose work has been published in most major North American fly fishing publications. A frequent contributor to The Canadian Fly Fisher, Scott is also the author of Ontario Blue-Ribbon Fly Fishing Guide. He is active on the lecture circuit. He lives in Thunder Bay at the western end of Lake Superior.
Northern Ontario
April 2010 Report for The Canadian Fly Fisher - by Scott Earl Smith
Once again we are experiencing some very unusual weather patterns in Northern Ontario. This past winter has been unseasonably warm, and judging by how many times I used my snowblower (twice) there wasn’t much snow either.
As of Easter, the spring runoff has come and gone and many of our rivers are at summer-time lows. We have not had much rain, so even though this past Easter weekend saw many anglers heading for our early-run steelhead streams, not much is happening. I have not wet a line, but have made several walks in the local woods and there is no snow, and little water in the drainage ditches and small streams. We are in dire need of rain or we will be in for one Hell of a forest fire season.
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) data on the Portage Creek study shows that the steehead run in Western Lake Superior will be down this spring mainly due to the poor recruitment of juveniles in the drought years of 2005, 2006 and 2007. A OMNR source advises that will be experiencing a few more years of sporadic steelhead runs. But again the strength of our wild steehead population will sustain these hurdles due to the strong presence of repeat spawners in the run. As I have reported before, we have steelhead in our system that have spawned up to 6 or more times. The presence of these dynamos keeps the regeneration going even during low water years. Because of this current down-turn in steelhead numbers, large rivers with ground water sources, like the Steel and the Wolf, will be less susceptible to recruitment fluctuations and should produce more consistent fishing results.
Once again limiting your harvest will be key to our rivers remaining healthy for years to come. Our limits here are one fish (with some stream-specific size restrictions) but most of our hard-core steelhead anglers keep their spring harvest down to one fish or less
The North Shore Steelhead Association keeps current data on their website and will give you a better understanding of the Portage Creek study and how it relates to the population in Western Lake Superior. You can read all about it by visiting
http://www.northshoresteelhead.com/project3.htm
The early thaw here at my end of Lake Superior will also mean that inland lake fishing for brook trout will be possible earlier than normal.
This is something I have not done extensively but plan on this year. A good friend of mine has just retired and he will be busily scouting these honey-hole lakes for good brook trout fishing. Hopefully I will be able to give a "generic” report on inland brookie fishing in my next column. (I say generic because if I give specific lakes my fingers will be broken such that I won’t be doing another column).
Cheers from Northern Ontario!
