The Walleye Magazine

Right On Our Doorstep

Protecting Rainbow Trout in Thunder Bay

By Matt Prokopchuk

Thunder Bay is a fairly unique place when it comes to having such robust urban Great Lakes fisheries right in town, says Tom Whalley, president of the North Shore Steelhead Association, and the group is working to make sure it stays that way.

The association, responding to concerns over declining populations of rainbow trout (also called steelheads) due to over-fishing in local waterways such as the Neebing and McIntyre Rivers, started efforts to rehabilitate fish stocks as well as annually monitor their numbers, says Whalley. The notfor-profit organization was formed in the 1970s to help conserve and preserve fisheries in Lake Superior’s tributaries, and continues to work to raise public awareness of the need to protect the north shore of Lake Superior. Efforts surrounding the rehabilitation and monitoring of the urban steelhead fisheries started about 30 years ago. “This was a very, very severely depressed fishery,” Whalley says. “We’ve been able to rehabilitate that fishery by limiting harvests. [We are] still allowing anglers to participate in the fishery [...] but we were able to limit harvests so that the fishery can not only survive, but thrive here in an urban environment.”

The organization works with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry on the initiative, which

includes using trained and ministry-certified volunteer anglers to catch and tag rainbow trout every spring in order to collect data on the life histories and numbers of the wild steelhead population. According to the association’s website, each angler receives a specialized kit and records the length and sex of each fish they catch, and takes a scale sample. Both the ministry and the steelhead association make use of the data, which is also made available to the public, and the two organizations share the cost of the project. Current data shows that there are about 2,000 adult rainbow trout in the north branch of the Neebing River, and about 3,000 in the McIntyre, according to Kyle Stratton, a director and volunteer with the steelhead association. That’s about three times higher in the McIntyre alone than what levels were at in 2008. “Those are the fish that produce the fishery for anglers […] who are into stream fishing, as well as those who don’t have the means, perhaps, to participate in lake fisheries,” Whalley says.

Overall, Whalley says that fishing limits in place on the Neebing and McIntyre Rivers are working to allow fish populations to rebound, but he stresses that any kind of rehabilitation work like this takes time. “That’s one thing that I really need to emphasize because a lot of people seem to think ‘Well, you just stop keeping fish and it’ll recover.’ Well, yeah, it will—assuming there are no major environmental factors hindering that—but it does take a substantial amount of time to stockpile a large number of these adult fish.”

The reward for those efforts is having a great source for wild-caught fish right in town. “I think it’s an absolute gem,” Whalley says of the local steelhead fisheries not only on the Neebing and McIntyre Rivers, but also the Kaministiquia and Current Rivers, as well as McVicar Creek. “That is probably unique, not only on Lake Superior, but perhaps on the north side of the Great Lakes.”

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Superior Outdoors