A leg up from the Stewardship Rangers

Jeff Green | Aug 23, 2012

Photo:  Gordon Thompson of the Greater Bobs and Crow Lake Association was helped up by one of the Stewardship Rangers as part of work bee to spread rocks on Bobs Lake this week for a Walleye spawning bed.

Members of the Stewardship Rangers spent a day on Bobs Lake this week helping the Greater Bobs and Crow Lake Association (GBCLA) set out a Walleye spawning bed at one of the major intake creeks on the lake, near the site of an old mill.

The GBLCA received a grant last year from the CFWIP (Community Fisheries and Wildlife Involvement Program) of the Ministry of Natural Resources to purchase rock for the project, but the water levels were never low enough to put the project into effect. This year the levels are low, and the rock was delivered and spread this week, enabling association members and the stewardship rangers to build a spawning bed at the location. The rangers are a group of 17-year-old high school students who have been working throughout the Kingston, Frontenac and Lennox & Addington region all summer. Gordon Thompson, the Director of Fisheries for the GBCLA, organized the project and was on hand to help spread the rock around, along with about 8 other association members.

The hope is that in the spring, when the water level is high, Walleye will be able to drop their fertilized eggs in the cracks between the rocks, where they can grow out of the reach of predator species such as crappy, blue gill, and sunfish, until they emerge as fingerling Walleye. The project was facilitated by the Frontenac Stewardship Council.