Spiel

On a good day you may catch enough for a good chowder or stew.

Councillors decry city’s new creek, river signs May 19th, 2009 Danna Zabrovsky / The National Post Fiscally conservative city councillors say new signs identifying Toronto’s rivers and creeks aren’t worth the money spent on them. The wavy signs, 128 of which popped up last month at 64 sites in Toronto, are meant to heighten awareness of water crossings and connect people to their surroundings. More signs marking the Don watershed are expected in Markham by the end of the year. “You’d have to be retarded if you can’t see dang’ water in front of you,” said Councillor Rob Ford (Etobicoke North), apparently unconcerned at offending either the plan’s proponents or people with intellectual disabilities. “The last time I checked, I think everyone knows where the Don River is and the Humber River is. It’s only been there for over a hundred years. So I don’t really know what we’re trying to accomplish by putting up signs and telling people, yeah, underneath this bridge there’s water.” The project posts signs identifying rivers and streams across the Don watershed, and is funded by the City of Toronto, the Town of Markham and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. They have spent $24,000 collectively to manufacture and install them; the signs are also slated to appear in Richmond Hill. Toronto Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong (Don Valley East) called the signs “a cosmetic approach that provides a limited benefit.” He suggested a better way of connecting people to local watercourses would be to make paths along the rivers more accessible. “If you really want to connect people, you make it easy and attractive for a city community to use the trail systems that goes along the Don watershed,” he said. He added that a plan to connect the hiking trails should be higher on the city’s to-do list. “If these routes were connected, then you could, for example, ride your bike from up at Lawrence and the Don Valley Parkway all the way downtown. That’s a true connection.” Markham Deputy Mayor Jack Heath is a supporter of the signs, but said Mr. Minnan-Wong is onto something: “These are not competing projects. These are different and complementary projects…. Environmental enhancements that occur in all the municipalities of the GTA affect each other The closer we integrate them, in my view, the better for all the general population to enjoy them.” Peter Heinz, vice-chairman of the Don Watershed Regeneration Council, said the signs benefit people who don’t know what a watershed is, let alone that they live in one. “People pass over a bridge and have no idea what’s underneath,” he said. “It’s all about connections in people’s minds. Connecting them to the creek that’s nearby, realizing that it’s connected to the creek they pass later on when they get down closer to downtown. It’s a visibility-awareness type thing,” Mr. Heinz said.

MOE, MNR putting chill on plans for Lake Manitou Subdivision Jim Moodie / www.manitoulin.ca LAKE MANITOU - Concerns about water quality and trout habitat have stalled a cottage development at the north end of Lake Manitou, and could lead to a temporary freeze on land severances elsewhere around the lake. "I'm not sure how serious the roadblock is, but it's certainly on hold," said landowner Doug McLay, who hopes to develop a 21-lot subdivision for seasonal residents on Green Bay near Red Lodge. Mr. McLay applied in September to have his land rezoned from agricultural to shoreline development, and about six months later "I finally got a response," he said. "A study has been requested for Lake Manitou to see if it can support any more cottages, and this could take three years." When an Official Plan amendment is required for rezoning, approval is needed from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), which consults with the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and the Ministry of the Environment (MOE), explained Elva Carter, secretary-treasurer of the Manitoulin Planning Board. In this case, "the MNR and the MOE expressed a concern with water quality to the MMAH," she said. "They say it's premature (to okay the development) until further testing is done and they're satisfied the lake capacity is there." Of specific concern is "dissolved oxygen in the water," said Ms. Carter, noting, "this requirement is higher on Lake Manitou because it is a lake-trout lake." Scott Dingwall, district planner with the MNR, confirmed that his ministry, in collaboration with the MOE, had raised a red flag. "We have some preliminary water quality information that indicates Lake Manitou is near, or at, its capacity to absorb nutrients that development contributes to a waterbody," he said. Lake Manitou supports a prized trout population, he noted, and "it's been used as an egg source for stocking other lakes," so protection of this resource is paramount. "The context for this is a policy statement that instructs us that 'development and site alteration shall not be permitted in fish habitat except in accordance with provincial and federal requirements,'" said the MNR planner. Lake-trout lakes "are particularly sensitive to nutrient loading," noted Mr. Dingwall, "and phosphorous is the key nutrient of concern here, as it can cause algae blooms." When photoplankton and other matter drift to the bottom of the lake-where lake trout lurk in the cold water-and begin to decompose, "you get deep-water oxygen depletion, which competes with lake trout needs." The MNR, he said, "has scientifically established that seven parts per million is the required oxygen content for the normal metabolic needs and growth of trout, and if this is reduced, the fish are stressed." Sampling done in the last five years shows that the oxygen level in Lake Manitou "is slightly below seven parts per million." Mr. Dingwall stressed that this is preliminary information, and more analysis needs to be carried out to "get a better data set, and establish with confidence" whether the lake can withstand more shoreline development. "There may be a risk, or there might not be," he said. "We need to err on the side of caution until we get a better picture." Mr. McLay's application has been deferred in the meantime, and "we are considering a temporary freeze on applications for severances" elsewhere on the lake, said Mr. Dingwall, as it would be unfair to defer one application and approve others. The file on Mr. McLay's application "has been closed administratively by the MMA," he said, but "once we have better information about the water quality, and if it says there is available capacity, he could reapply." Mr. McLay didn't anticipate such a hiccup in his plans. "I thought I was in the clear, because Green Bay is a shallow, sand bay, and as far as I know there aren't any trout spawning beds," he said. There are other cottage communities in this part of Manitou already-including one on either side of Mr. McLay's property-but it isn't wall-to-wall development. Nor is Mr. McLay convinced that cottagers are the main problem when it comes to nutrient levels in the lake. "They say oxygen is being depleted in Lake Manitou, but they forget to mention the hundreds of cattle that are still watering in the lake," he said. Rather than wait three years for the MNR and MOE to assess the lake's ability to support more development, Mr. McLay wonders if he can speed up the process by commissioning his own analysis. "At this point I may suggest that I hire my own consultants to study this," he said. While a broader clampdown on Lake Manitou development could be in the offing until the water study is complete, Ms. Carter of the Planning Board said she has received no information to that effect as yet. "If someone applies for a lot, we still have the ability to do planning approvals," she indicated. Vetting by the MMAH (with input from the other ministries) was required in this instance because "it wasn't zoned appropriately," said Ms. Carter, but "if the designation and zoning are in place, the planning board would take the application." "We're dealing with one application here," she said. "I don't have anything that tells me I can't take an application from someone else. There's no freeze." It's certainly put Mr. McLay's plans on ice, though, possibly for as long as three years. And that prospect gives him a distinct chill. "I don't want to wait that long," he said. "I'm not getting any younger. And I'm still paying interest on the land."

Tying titles: There's more to creating an original new fly than simply giving it a name Jeff Dewsbury / outdoorcanada.ca Invention convention: The true test of a new fly is whether it can actually catch a fish "What are you using?" I shout downstream as my buddy plays another fish to the bank. "A Ralph's Stimulator," he yells back with a smirk on his face. It's an old joke, but we both laugh anyway. Ralph-not his real name-is a guy we know who modifies well-known fly patterns, then attaches his name to the creation. It would be like me adding a few paragraphs to The Iliad and calling it Jeff's Iliad. Technically, I guess Ralph is justified. After all, he modified the fly and, in doing so, changed its identity. But did the fly actually become an entirely new creation? Can Ralph truly plant his flag, confident he's navigated uncharted waters? When Bono from the rock group U2 penned the lyric "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief" for the song "The Fly," I'm sure fishing flies were the furthest thing from his rock-star mind. But the sentiment of the lyric-that people are continually stealing from what has already been created in order to make new things-rings true even in the world of fur, feathers and tinsel. Plagiarism is the lifeblood of fly tying, which is one of the greatest unstructured, free-form creative commons in the world today-think of the fly-fishing fraternity as one of the first open-source collectives. After all, the practice of lashing various materials to hooks in a bid to catch fish has been around for centuries, yet it's not bound by copyright or patent law. And it never will be. Consider: I can watch another angler unhook a fish and find out what his fly looks like. Or I could take a peek in a buddy's fly box. I might just find an old fly snagged on a tree branch. Whatever the case, I can then go home and tie a dozen replicas of the same fly, perhaps with some modifications. I could even sell them. This process of continually copying and modifying flies is an understood component of the fly-tying art form, and that's precisely what makes it so difficult to determine when a fly has become an entirely new entity-or when it has merely been pimped up. So, does it really matter at what point a fly gets a new name? Not really. Fly fishing can be as cerebral as an angler wants it to be, but utility trumps aesthetics every time. And when you're on the water, the origin of a fly is the last thing that matters-your main concern is enticing a fish. It's only in magazines we have the luxury of getting, well, existential about such issues. And given that luxury, I would have to say a fly should only be considered a new creation if it somehow breaks new ground, even in a basic way. For example, Jack Shaw, the inventor of chironomid fishing, blazed a trail for a long list of new offerings. Now B.C.'s still­water anglers spend the off-season filling boxes with dozens of combinations and permutations of Shaw's original design. And, through word of mouth and infinite adaptation, a long list of chironomid patterns has found its way into the West Coast angling lexicon. Changes as simple as adding a red butt or a white bead to the head were ample enough to crown these variations with new names. But sheer sex appeal alone wasn't the deciding factor. These flies earned the right to have a name because they got the job done. Conversely, many an angler can attest to near perfect-looking offerings coming off the tying bench that, like flashy first-round draft picks, couldn't live up to the hype. Such castoffs tend to fade away into obscurity, never to be heard from again. Indeed, the whole process has Darwinian undertones. In the end, you can name your fly whatever you want, but there's always the possibility the moniker will be modified or replaced by others, or simply disappear. There's no guarantee it will stick. It's ultimately the court of angler opinion-and our finicky pea-brained quarry-that will decide if a fly is original enough to see its name live on.

30,000 cormorants destroying lakeside park May 20, 2009 Leslie Scrivener / www.thestar.com Cormorants have overtaken a peninsula of Toronto's Leslie Street Spit, which, thanks to aggressive nest building, is barren but for one tree. (May 13, 2009) MICHAEL STUPARYK/TORONTO STAR Dark and swift, flocks of cormorants soar above Lake Ontario before hundreds of them finally dip down to the diamond-flecked water. It's a stirring sight on a bright spring day. But cormorants are less beautiful on land. One arm of the Leslie Street Spit, home to Tommy Thompson Park and the Great Lakes' largest colony of cormorants, looks like a wintry apocalypse. There are no trees now, just a few guano-spattered snags. This is where cormorants first settled in the park in 1990. They now number about 30,000. In some Ontario parks, Parks Canada officials shoot cormorants to stem the loss of trees. Wildlife defence groups argue about a hierarchy of values in nature: Are trees and the forest canopy more worthy than a colony of cormorants? These widely unloved, fish-eating migratory birds are ruthless nest builders. With their hook-tipped bills, they strip tree branches; their guano becomes a hyper fertilizer, wrecking the chemistry of the soil. Trees die three to 10 years after the birds build their nests. On Lake Erie's tiny Middle Island, in Point Pelee National Park, 20,000 cormorants have stripped away 41 per cent of the tree canopy. To reduce the impact on the island's nature life, Parks Canada officials went out with small-gauge rifles for six days in April and May and shot 1,600 birds. A cull is not proposed on Toronto's spit. "We don't feel lethal control is appropriate or needed," says park manager Ralph Toninger. But the rate of deforestation there is accelerating and it's a shocking sight. Four arms, or peninsulas, radiate from the spit. Peninsula A is treeless; Peninsula B, with its pungent odour of guano, has lost half its trees; and in Peninsula C, thousands of black birds perch in the trees like eerie ornaments. That area is losing trees 10 times faster than in the past. "It's increasing exponentially," says Toninger. He notes the tree loss occurred when the cormorant population was one-quarter what it is today. Peninsula D is untouched. Staff at Toronto and Region Conservation Authority try to encourage cormorants to build nests on the ground. They set up speakers playing recordings of cormorant calls (which sound like snoring), put out decoys, hay bales and tires. Now, 1,000 of the 7,000 nests on the spit are on the ground. Still that's not reducing the numbers and that concerns people like Cathryn MacFarlane, who say cormorants should be controlled with humane methods, such as oiling their eggs. (Deprived of oxygen, the eggs don't hatch.) "We have been supporting the conservation authority, but we're getting frustrated," says MacFarlane, on the board of the Aquatic Park Sailing Club at the east end of the spit. "Will someone please stand up and ask, why don't trees count? What about the songbirds?" In other places, conservationists have tried to reduce cormorant numbers by poking at nests and introducing birds of prey. One of the most creative efforts is in Hamilton harbour, where cormorants were pushing herring gulls out of their nests, says Jim Quinn, behavioural ecologist at McMaster University. Quinn employed a fleet of dancing, battery-operated Santas, sheathed them in raincoats and put them on the wildlife islands, in the harbour near gulls' nests. "The cormorants are declining a little in the harbour," says Quinn. On Middle Island at Point Pelee, nine species are threatened or endangered. The ecosystem is considered so delicate that visitors are banned from May to September. The islands are critical for migratory Monarch butterflies as a refuge on their flight across the Great Lakes, says park superintendent Marian Stranak, adding that Parks Canada has a mandate to protect species at risk. Their methods of killing cormorants were "controlled, humane and safe," she says. A group called Cormorant Defenders International insists this is a matter of humans trying to manage nature. "We've come to the notion that trees are good and lack of trees is bad," says spokeswoman Julie Woodyer. "Why can't we see the beauty of a non-treed island if it happens to be a beautiful bird colony?" "This is supposed to be a protected bird area, where people are prevented from going. If birds can't exist there in typical numbers, there is no place they will be tolerated. The exception is the Leslie Street Spit." There, she says, Cormorant Defenders "pushed really hard" with the conservation authority on the need for cormorant management. Should nature be allowed to take its course? Is intervention necessary to ensure a balance? Is shooting cormorants – once threatened themselves – the most civilized way to protect plant and animal life? Ed Reid, wildlife biologist for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, says cormorants, which eat about a pound of fish a day, should "absolutely" be culled. The federation maintains that their numbers are an "ecological disaster in the making," media releases say. "If human enterprise did to water quality what cormorants do, it would not be tolerated," says Reid. At Tommy Thompson Park, declared an Important Bird Area by Nature Canada and Bird Studies Canada, 25 per cent of the trees have been destroyed and some birds, like the black-crowned night heron, are being pushed out. The number of herons has dropped from 1,200 pairs in 2001 to 500 today. Leslie Street Spit, which receives 250,000 visitors a year, is man-made, built on the foundation of construction rubble. The trees cling to life on thin soil. Toninger looks at Peninsula C across a bucolic scene of red osier dogwood, giant bur reeds and sparkling water. If the trees weren't there, the birds wouldn't have nested. Cormorants were once rare, too. Pesticides such as DDT thinned their eggshells and their numbers plunged. But when DDT was banned, reducing lake contaminants, fish populations such as alewife increased, and the birds, able to feast in the fish farms in the southern U.S. where they overwinter, began to thrive. In 1990, the first 11 pairs of cormorants nested on the spit. "It's amazing we see this," says Toninger. "Cormorants were pushed to (near) extinction in the '60s and '70s." Then he points to the city. "There's the CN Tower and there's a bird colony. Where else can you see a nesting colony (not far from) a TTC ride?" Julie Woodyer of Cormorant Defenders International witnessed this year's Middle Island cull from a boat. She wept at what she saw. Most carcasses were left where they fell. "They are a part of a natural ecosystem, not a threat to it," she says. "They are being targeted because people find them unattractive and undesirable. People say they like to live with nature, but they like to look at nature not live with it."

May 21, 2009 Will Elliott / www.buffalonews.com Lake Erie Boaters have neither enough lines nor time to get to all the hot bites warming up on the eastern end of Lake Erie. When waves and weather allow, perch packs gather around near-Buffalo shoals (mainly Seneca Shoal and Meyers Reef) at depths of 30-40 feet, off Sturgeon Point at 45-55 feet, and off Cattaraugus Creek at 50-55 feet. Minnows work at all locations. “Sometimes the salted emeralds work better than live bait,” said Rick Miller at Miller’s Bait & Tackle in Irving. Drifters work larger minnows or goby-colored jigs (tails and tubes) along rocky drop-offs at depths anywhere from 10 feet out to 30 feet for smallmouth. Good bites occur along both sides of the Buffalo Harbor breakwaters and along reefs from Donnelly’s Wall to Sturgeon Point. The Hamburg shoreline gets much attention. Walleye have set their sights on bait-fish well after dark. Trollers work the Buffalo/ Hamburg shoreline and shoal edges west of Dunkirk Harbor well into the early- morning hours. Mixed sizes of minnow- type baits (try the Nos. 7 or 9 as well as the 13 and 18 Rapalas). Lake Ontario The salmon run is king east of the Niagara Bar in deeper water. Following successes during the Lake Ontario Counties (LOC) Derby, trollers have dropped spoons down close to bottom in 100-150 feet for more kings than lake trout. Spoons, Spin Doctor and fly rigs account for good numbers and sizes of salmon, with the occasional coho hitting rigs. At both Olcott and Oak Orchard, the hot depth settings have been 40-70 feet. Closer to shore, the Niagara Bar has seen a nice run of coho salmon, with a few lingering lake trout hitting off the deeper edges. While salmon and trout fishing, many a drifter has hit into huge smallmouth bass. Bass season opens June 20, but incidental catches of bruiser bass have come into Village Hardware, said proprietor Nick Custodi. One angler weighted a mid-20-inch smallie that reached 7.5-pounds on a hand-held scale. Along shore, the perch run continues to be fun. Wilson Harbor and Oak Orchard Creek have seen a good number of northern pike, but Olcott Harbor has been a perch paradise this past week. Shore casters at Olcott use either worms or fathead minnows from the pier or boat, said Wes Walker at Slippery Sinker Bait & Tackle. Water temperatures have risen well above spawning, but the bigger female perch continue to hold in shallow bays and along creek mouths.

Hmmmmmm, might be in. Can't say for certain at this time.

You were just around the corner from me and you didn't drop by?

I'd say you're absolutely ready for new tires. You'll be safer and so will I.

You are one hell of a scruffy mess.

Super, I'd love to tangle with one of those babies someday. Looking forward to seeing some more of the 400 odd pictures.

I would do three things, turn off the fish I.D. mode, read the owners manual and then bone up on using and interpreting sonar images.

You're hungry?

Two thumbs up!

Depending on the size of the perch it can take upwards of 50 to feed my clan of fish lovers.

Oh I don't know 'bout that, I think the brown is right up there with speckies and those are some fine examples! Good on you for taking the nephew out, he'll be anxiously awaiting for next Sunday.

Excellent advise Tom and well stated.

Hard not to be happy with that kind of success, well done Mike.

A fellow Hamiltonian eh, welcome.

Nice, I'm telling you for certain you had way more fun over the weekend than I did.

Whitefish is a highly sought after fish for the table by those in the know. In fact the underslung mouth of the whitefish is more sucker like than that of the Sheephead whose mouth is designed for crushing mollusks but are frequently caught by trollers using minnow baits. None the less I've never eaten one or plan to eat one.

That sucks Bill, next time take me with you.

Don't forget picutres Cliff, lots of pictures as it'll no doubt be a very memorable trip. I hear dinner at Roy's is a sort of buffet.

Well I'm certainly aquainted with all four of those folks Garry and thank you for a very enjoyable morning read. Buck is and I guess always will be a very entertaining dog to fish with.

$25.00, yikes! Aren't you glad we got in free Fish Farmer. Good job on the fishies Bill, Farmer and I hit pretty good last Monday, plenty of whities and lakers, right Farmer.