Friday May 01, 2015
From Wil Wegman
Resource Management Technician
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry
Week One Update of Trap netting On G Pool
Hi Ian and Bob,
Just a brief update after our first week of trap netting on Gloucester Pool/Little
Lake. Please pass on to your members if you like
Everything has gone well so far and both Peter and Dax were outstanding
volunteers for MC as were Jim and Brian with Orillia F & G.
We set 6 trap nets Monday and were able to fish them Tuesday-Thursday. We
close off nets Thursdays. Fridays we can’t collect eggs so no use fishing
them. The nets will be opened Sunday so we begin again Monday. Water temps
ranged from a low of 6.8 Monday to over 9 C Yesterday … so we are anticipating
an egg collection next week … but of course it’s all up to the Muskie.
One outstanding Muskie was captured – seen below held by Midhurst staff Brent
Shirley (left) – a veteran of this program and myself. She came in at 49 inches
and with the girth of 24” we estimate the weight at over 35 lbs. This is the first
year we decided NOT to collect weights as we believed the added stress of these
special fish simply was not worth the risk.
We did however take scale samples (for ageing and DNA), as well as fork, total
and girth lengths … plus a uniquely numbered yellow tag was administered…
with our district phone number on it. We don’t re- tag recaptured fish – so that
means this big, old girl has never been captured by us before. It’s encouraging
that we still get so many ‘new’ fish coming into our trap nets every year!
Happy to report that this fish was also caught at one of our sites that produced
very poorly (for all fish- not just Muskie) last year … meaning that our strategy to
stick with 6 key productive areas (vs moving the nets around a lot like we used to
at the start of the program) is paying off. Our data confirms it’s not unusual for
one set to be void of Muskie one year but can be your top set the next …
This Muskie was hard … and not ready to offer eggs but it got everyone excited
and ready for more! With water temps rising very quickly … next week could be
prime. Below are a few quick pics for your viewing pleasure!
Thanks to all the volunteers who helped this week.
Below are the captions from the pictures taken:
Scott McGill (left … MNRF staff on his last day with us), Brent Shirley and myself
holding a gar. The variety of fish species we catch in our nets is always a great
bonus.
MNRF Biologist Emily Funnel was out with us yesterday and she was happy to
see this “Species of Special Concern” … The Northern Map Turtle remains as a
common bi-catch during our Muskie program. Many MC and Orillia F & G
members will remember when Emily led the Muskie program for us.
Regular maintenance … such as mending trap nets is just one of many tasks we
all help out with each day. Here Brent practices his sewing skills after some
critter chewed a few holes in our net.
One of the iconic, yet quirky landmarks found around Little Lake and G Pool are
old Ringer Washing Machines … that serve as dedicated hazard warnings for
boaters. After seeing this old girl knocked down for 3 days … I couldn’t stand it
any longer, and had to get out and straighten her up for all to see
Wil Wegman
<°))))><
Resource Management Technician
Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry