(Sr. Outdoors Guy with a nice cold water brook trout we caught, with surface temp ranging from 49 – 54 degrees F)
My annual trout fishing trip to Temiscaming with my Dad and brother-in-law’s is a time I look forward to all year long..regardless if we catch a lot fish, mystery or otherwise.
This year certainly was a great trip fishing-wise, and a very poor one weather-wise, with bitter cold daytime temps and even 3″ of snow on the tent one morning!
Oh well, when you’re catching fishing like this, who cares!!
(Photo of ‘mystery trout’ now beleived to be an Aurora trout)
(Here’s Bruce with a great looking male brookie pulled from ‘Lac Perdu’)
This year we released 12 trout(10 brook, 2 mystery) – the most trout we ever have released; including one fish well over 3 pounds!
(Not a bad looking camping spot!)
(Not a bad tent set-up too!)
(The boys working on breakfast inside the tent)
Mystery solved!!!
Ok, thanks to Maple(& others) for their assitance in finally identifying our mystery trout!
What I had always considered to be ‘Quebec Reds’ appear to be the endangered species called Aurora trout. Although we only caught two this year (both released) we have probably caught more than 20 of these special fish over the years.
In our secret lake we call Lac Perdu, brook trout and Aurora trout appear to live together(& spawn) in harmony. The brookies account for probably 90% of the lakes population with Aurora accounting for maybe 10%.
Now that we know what they are, and after reading up on this rare fish, we will no longer keep any of them from this lake. According to what I read, the Aurora experts are not coming out and labelling the Quebec Aurora’s with that name, as they claim all Auroras’ are found within Ontario waters.
The QC Aurora’s currently found in only 2-3 lakes(I gues 4 now), at the moment, appear to be a mystery. The original Aurora’s were distributed only in lakes around Sudbury, and most of those fell victim to acid rain.
Just one more reason I enjoy my annual trout fishing trips. You never know what you’re going to catch!
Here are some close-up shots of the QC Aurora we caught two years ago. The ones from this year were released safely at boatside and no photos were taken:
You can see how they differ from regular brook trout with a lack of ‘halo’ spots and lack of vermiculation on the fins and upper half of their body.
Outdoorsguy