Introduction
Lake Trout Hydro-Acoustic Research Program
Smallmouth Bass - Tournament and Live Release Considerations
Corporate Sponsors
Sonic implants - procedures

Introduction

In 1991, the Trout Lake Conservation Association began a sonic tracking research program. This was the year that the lake trout fishery was closed due to overhavest. It was decided that, if the TLCA was to help the Ministry of Natural Resources manage the fishery as a "partner", then we needed good, lake specific information re the behaviour of the various fish species. This page outlines what we have discovered in our five years of research.

Lake Trout Hydro-Acoustic Research Program

Initially eight lake trout were tagged, with a good mix of native (hatched naturally from native lake trout stock in the lake) and stocked lake trout. In Trout Lake the stocked lake trout, for reasons unknown, do not seem to spawn. All our sonic lake trout were captured, tagged, and released in the main section of the lake. By the end of the five year program, 12 lake trout had been tagged.

Results:

1. Most lake trout, in the summer, roam extensively both laterally and vertically and thus, over time, utilise all of the oxygen rich, cold water habitat. A few individuals did not follow this pattern however (see below).
2. The summer range of some lake trout is very small (a few kilometers), whereas others roam the whole lake (11 km).
3. A few individuals spent almost all of their time in the very cold (6 C), very deep areas of the lake.
4. In the summer, many lake trout make excursions into warm, shallow areas for short periods of time, presumably looking for food.
5. During the period of time when the lake is stratified, many of the lake trout lurked just under the thermoclyne, while hunting for food. Given that Atlantic salmon also hunt for food here, it is thought that the lake trout may compete to some extent for food with the salmon.
6. Over the five year period, no sonically implanted lake trout was ever found in Four Mile Bay. Lake trout are no longer reproducing in Four Mile Bay for reasons that are still under study (habitat degradation, overfishing, erosion etc.) It doesn't look like native fish from the main basin will recolonize Four Mile Bay on their own.
7. In the early summer of 1996, an attempt was made to translocate a large, native lake trout from the main lake's 68 m Basin to Four Mile Bay. It was hoped that the lake trout would make Four Mile Bay its home and, come fall, try to find a place to spawn in Four Mile Bay. This would indicate possible suitable spawning habitat in Four Mile Bay. This experiment was a failure. The sonic fish simply returned to the main lake to spawn come fall. A press release was issued detailing this experiment. Other alternatives are being explored to attempt to resestablish native lake trout to the Four Mile Bay Basin.
8. In the fall of 1996, all "sonic" native lake trout were seen on the lake trout spawning beds at the same time. No "sonic" stocked lake trout were seen attempting to spawn on the beds. The fact that all our "sonic" native fish were seen together implies that the fish that we observe on the spawning beds may well represent a large fraction of the spawning stock.
9. As of the spring 1997, most of our sonic lake trout were still alive and well. This indicates that the sonic tags have not caused them undue harm or hinderance re finding food or mates.

Smallmouth Bass - Tournaments and live-release considerations

Over the last several years, bass tournaments have become quite popular and Trout Lake now hosts in the order of four such tournaments each year. These tournaments are live release and provide researchers with the opportunity to size, weigh and age numerous bass. Some individuals were also sonic implanted to determine their response to being live released some distance from their point of capture. One important result that came out of these studies is that it takes about a week before the bass, released in a group, start migrating back to their area of capture. Consequently, if the tournament bass are just dumped back into the lake at the weigh-in station at the end of the day, they will be concentrated and vulnerable to angling. So long as efforts are made to return the fish to their basins of capture, these tournaments appear to have little to no direct negative effects on the fishery.

However, one unexpected drawback of the bass tournaments was that they popularized the bass fishery. And, for the most part, these new anglers were practising catch-and-keep. Whereas a walleye will lay several HUNDRED THOUSAND eggs, a female bass will only lay several hundred eggs. So the bass fishery is much more vulnerable to overfishing than the walleye fishery. Consequently, a public education campaign was started by the Trout Lake Conservation Association (with MNR support) to try and educate the public about the special needs of the bass fishery.

Corporate Sponsors

We greatfully acknowledge the financial contributions of the Friends of the Environment foundation without whose help this web site would not have been possible.

Our Research Program would not have been possible without our membership contributions and the generous contributions made by the following organisations (listed alphabetically): Bob's Bait and Marine, Hal's Marine, Harbour Landing and Marine, Hopper Pontiac Buick, Lakeview Grocers (Spykes), Lefebvre's Sports, Nipissing Rotary Club, North Bay Lion's Club, Northeastern Ontario Bass Association, (The) Portage, Power Sports and Marine, Simpson and Osborne Land Surveyors, Stockfish Ford, Tidas II Lotteries, TransCanada Pipeline, Trout Lake Conservation Association, Wingate Lotteries. /