SHEGUIANDAH—Members of the Little Current Fish and Game Club (LCFGC) held their annual class visits to the Sheguiandah hatchery site, the 20th anniversary of this undertaking, but there was a decidedly sombre tone to this year’s event.
The members, many of whom are long-time volunteers, were saddened that there were no walleye to show the visiting Grade 4 students this year from all across Manitoulin—a first.
A highlight of the class trips is the opportunity to get up-close-and-personal with fish that LCFGC members live trap in their hoop net at the mouth of Bass Creek. The fish are then moved into a trough for the kids to examine and touch. The trough contained bowfin, rock bass, perch, but no walleye—the signature fish of the event.
In the spring, thanks largely to the efforts of the LCFGC, walleye make the trip home up the Bass Creek to spawn. The fruits of the club’s efforts are legendary in the North Channel, with trophy walleye being landed in the summer months. This spring, when the water temperatures were getting close to the ideal spawning rate, long-time LCFGC president (and now life member) Bill Strain would make the trek in the dead of night to check the creek for walleye, shining his flashlight to get a glimpse of the fish so the club would know it was time to set their hoop nets, but this year there were none to be had.
Since 1986 the LCFGC the club has been capturing the eggs and sperm of spawning walleye and helping the eyed-eggs along in a hatchery, the fry then being transferred to ponds that are minded by the club before being released back into the area waters.
“By the early 1990s, we started to see small walleye returning back to the river,” Mr. Strain told The Expositor. “By the late 1990s, it was unbelievable.”
“2015 was absolutely incredible,” he continued. “The walls of the river were saturated with walleye.”
Mr. Strain explained that after 2015, the numbers began to decline. “People started to harvest the fish at night in Sheguiandah Bay, before they reached their spawning goal of Bass Creek. This year, we had absolutely nothing to show the kids,” he added, noting the club spent $20,000 last year to upgrade the hatchery that can now accommodate two million eggs.
A segment of the four days of class trips features the other wildlife that call the creek home and that use the ecosystem to their advantage. On Thursday, Mr. Strain and the club entertained a class from Wiiwemkoong. He showed them a photo of an osprey, which for years had been a regular tenant of Sheguiandah Bay, but not this year. “Maybe because there’s no fish now, who knows,” he shrugged.
“We try to spread the word (on the importance of not fishing spawning walleye) far and wide,” Mr. Strain told this newspaper. Each female walleye deposits 30,000 eggs during spawning season.
Mr. Strain said the club would approach the Blue Jay Creek Ministry of Natural Resources hatchery this week to see if they can get any walleye fry for their ponds but, he explained, if they are lucky enough to get some fry, these fish can only be placed in inland lakes, not the big water due to the threat of the highly infectious viral haemorrhagic septicaemia (VHS).
“We’ve never had this happen before,” Mr. Strain lamented. “Twenty years of class visits, and it’s the first time there’s been no walleye to show.”
