Recently, we received these great photos from the Lake Trout Project folks. In late March, through a hole in the lake’s 60-cm-thick ice, they stocked approximately 170,000 native fingerling lake trout back into Red Lake. These fingerlings were spawned on site at our camp’s main dock in 2016 by the MNRF and have been growing to this size for 18 months at the hatchery. The MNRF released the fingerlings by sledding bags of them out to Wolf Basin. Releasing them this way ensures that the gulls aren’t picking off the fingerlings and gives the little fish the greatest chance of survival.

A lake trout fingerling just about to be released into Red Lake. Photo by the MNRF.

Stocking trucks, carrying 30,000 lake trout fingerlings each, left Dorion very early on the morning of the release. Once the truck reached Red Lake, the fish were scooped into buckets of water. From there, they were transferred into bags and oxygen was added. After they tied them up, the bags of fingerlings went onto a sleigh and out to the hole in the ice.

A bag of lake trout fingerlings come back home to Red Lake through a hole in the ice. Photo compliments of the MNRF.

Next time you catch a Red Lake trout, check out its fins. If it is clipped, you will know that one is courtesy of the MNRF’s lake trout project. We at Bow Narrows thank the MNRF for their dedication to and stewardship of our prized Red Lake native fish.