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Angling Publications - Index

Angling Publications - april2008 - Index

Not many steelhead
fly anglers can say they’ve hooked 30 fish
in a day. I have. But I should qualify that
statement a bit. I was asked by friend and
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
biologist, Jon George, to assist him in
catching and tagging steelhead on a private
steelhead stream as part of a bona fide
population study. Of course it took me less
than a nanosecond to blurt out the words,
“Sure. When?,” and then tried not to giggle
like a 12-year-old girl for the remainder of
the conversation.
I still remember how my eyes grew like
saucers as they focused on the steelhead
that were stacked like so much cordwood
that day on Portage Creek. The first cast of
my Sparrow Nymph resulted in a chromer
zipping through the pool and instantly coming
unbuttoned behind a rock. “That won’t
do,” announced Jon, reminding me that we
needed to land fish in order to tag them.
I must say I horsed a lot of fish that day.
We team-landed almost 60 steelies with the
aid of a large rubber net, and didn’t mess
around with those gentlemanly things like
light tippets and honoring fish. Strictly
business. After all, this was work not play.
The fish were wild Lake Superior
steelhead in various sizes, from 20 inches
all the way up to and including a couple
of 32-inch dandies—basically as big as
Lake Superior steelhead get. The fish were
a mixture of those that had been tagged in
previous years, and new fish. Some, in fact,
had been tagged for several years consecutively.
All were caught with a hook and line
by George and his assistants.
Today, Portage Creek and its annual
run of 1,800+ Lake Superior steelhead is
still closed to the angling public, and will
likely stay that way; but back in 1993 before
the study began, its numbers were a dismal
300. How did it change? Here’s the story.
In 1991 an Ontario Ministry of Natural
Resources fisheries biologist by the name
of Jon George instituted the Co-operative
Steelhead Study in conjunction with
various north shore fishing clubs, and other
interested anglers. The study involved the
collection of key biological information
from adult steelhead by stream (length,
sex, and life history derived from scale
samples). The culmination of the study
in 1994 confirmed anglers’ perceptions
of declining steelhead stocks on the north
shore of Lake Superior. George’s management
report, based on the four years of
data, recommended a reduction in the
creel limit from five per day to one per day.
This change came about incrementally,
with an initial reduction to two fish per
day, but ultimately was implemented in
1999 with the blessing of the stakeholders.
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