Trout Release A Community Effort On Loughborough Lake

Jeff Green | May 24, 2023

The crew of volunteers who showed up to meet a truck from The Fish Culture Station at a private dock on Loughborough Lake, last Friday morning (May 19), were greeted with sunny and warm weather. 

The weather on the day is one of the few details, surrounding the release of almost 15,000 fingerling Manitou Trout fingerlings, that comes down to luck. Everything else about this collaborative effort between 4 organisations, is accomplished by good planning and a shared goal.

The goal is to enhance the trout population in Loughborough Lake while maintaining the diverse fish and wildlife population in the lake, and much of the planning is done by Nada Beamish, who makes all the arrangements and coordinates all the volunteers.

Beamish, who said that she has never gone fishing, got involved in the event as part of her work on the Loughborough Lake Association Board back in 2014.

The Storrington Guide Association had arranged a meeting with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) officials, and White Lake Fish Culture Station (aka Fish Hatchery) officials, to talk about the trout stocking program on the lake. The guides invited the lake association to attend, and Beamish came from the association.

Out of that meeting, a group of volunteers formed to help manage the annual release of trout fingerlings. The stocking program had already been in place for 40 years by that time. 

Since then, with the exception of the COVID years, 2020 and 2021, the release has been accomplished by public officials, helped by a core group of volunteers, mostly from Loughborough Lake, to ensure an optimal level of success for the fingerlings by locating them at many strategic locations around the lake.

“The MNRF have been stocking trout from the fish culture in our lake since at least 1974,” said Beamish, “ranging from 1300 fingerlings in 1974 to as many as 112,000 in 2004.” 

Tom Brennan, who attended that meeting in 2014 because he is a long time member of the Storrington Guide Association and has helped out with the release ever since, said “it is my understanding that the fish were out of balance back in 2004, and because the ministry was monitoring the lake they decided to change the program, but the White Lake people know more about that.”

Loughborough Lake was not stocked at all in 2005 or in 2011, and since 2014 the numbers have been pretty steady in the 15,000 range.

Last Friday, there were 6 boats with local volunteers, a number of runners bringing fish from the tank in the truck, to the boats in nets, where the fish were placed in icy cold coolers, along with ministry and fish station officials. 

“The boats were given the coordinates, I think with GPS, for where they were to release each load, and they sped off to get there so that the fish went from the tank to the water as quickly as possible, I think 10 to 15 minutes before the fish start to be stressed,” said Nada Beamish.

Each of the boats made about 5 trips, each with 6 nets full of fish, making for about 30 separate releases. After releasing the fish, the boats remained in place for a few minutes to let the fingerlings swim down to a deeper spot in the lake where the oxygen level fits their needs, and they are below the level where predators, cormorants being one of the prominent ones, are not able to reach them.

“The success rate of the release is very high, almost all of the fingerlings survive that part” said Brennan, who teaches marketing at St. Lawrence College when he is not out guiding anglers in the summertime.

Maintaining a healthy, and diverse, fish population, in Loughborough Lake, is a common goal for all of the groups who are involved in the release.

“One thing that all of the Storrington guides all follow, when out guiding, is that we keep enough fish for a shore lunch, and any trophy fish that are caught can be photographed, but are then returned to the lake. All of the guides work like that, since the group was founded decades ago,” said Brennan.

“I can’t say enough about this core volunteer group from the lake who show up every year. This year we had a new family come on. It ran perfectly this year. The truck arrived exactly when they said it would, and it was a smooth operation. We were done in 90 minutes,” said Beamish.

One group that was missing this year was the Queen's Biology Department Freshwater Fisheries Conservation Lab, which is run by Dr. Bruce Tufts.

“They usually come out with 2 boats and 8 or 9 biology students who help with the release, and do other monitoring during the year, but Dr. Tufts is on sabbatical this year so the program is not running, so we picked up the slack,” said Beamish.

Like in other years, in early April, Beamish got a call from her contact at the fish station to make sure the group was still ready to help out, and then in late April or early May, another call comes in to confirm the date.

“Usually by then I've already been contacted by some of the families, wanting to know the date so they can schedule their time. I email everyone else, when I know the date, and we get everything organised. It's a pleasure to do this. I don't sit on the lake association executive any more but I still work on this every year. We missed it during COVID. It was great to start up again last year after missing two years, and this year was great.”

The volunteers, MNRF staffers, and the fish station trucks, all disperse as quickly as they arrive when the job is all done. The only perk anyone gets are homemade cookies that Nada Beamish makes as bait.

“I think they like the cookies, they keep coming back,” she said.