Ok folks, it’s time to test your fishing knowledge with a ‘Pop Quiz’ to correctly identify the fish species in the below photograph.
There are two answers I will accept, but one is more correct than the other (& will garner a larger prize package)
This question ties-in with an article feature I wrote for Outdoor Canada Magazine, to appear in their spring issue.
The first person to send me the correct identification of this fish will win a selection of fishing tackle courtesy of Brecks – makers of the famous Williams and Mooselook wobblers!
Now, I am not expecting the scientific name, but will accept it. It is the common name I am looking for, and will allow one guess per person in my comment section.
Good luck and good fishing!
Outdoorsguy
Good luck on your ‘Lac Perdue” Jeff. Don’t need yours anyhow, I have my own, but keep yours a closely guarded secret. It’s precious! I’d like to continue with topic with you off-blog, but can’t locate your e-mail address.
You know, many lakes in Quebec are stocked consistantly by locals. Every pot hole and beaver pond is seeded with fry. So many “secret” lakes never reveal their true fish origins. Fish hatcheries are like depanneurs there. Little trout are sold by the bucket-full. And nobody tells anybody. It’s secret.
I know you WANT to believe you are catching Quebec reds, and it’s hard to convince people otherwise after all those years of believing, but do have a look at the resources at hand. 99% of people are under the false impression that those reddish specs are Quebec reds, just because it’s like ‘Wow, a Quebec red, how special’…..everybody wants it to be a Quebec red, and calls it such, but, alas, they’re not. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. And the myth perpetuates.
This is what I do whenever I have the chance. Relay the facts. Vermicualtion on back? If so,it’s not a red. Vermiculation or spots on dorsal fin? If so, it’s not a red. Black on pectoral fins? If so, it’s not a red…..now, look at your fish……looks much like a Kenauk speck.
Here’s a link to the Quebec govt’s Quebes red trout info. Look at the features of reds. Not what 99.9% of people think reds look like. Many differences. Most fishers including Bill Saiff II and local ‘expert fishermen’ have been mistakenly prolonging the deception. You can make a difference Jeff!!! Tell it like it is.
http://www.mrnf.gouv.qc.ca/faune/peche/poissons/omble-chevalier.jsp
Also here’s a link to a previous discussion on the topic.
http://www.fish-hawk.net/hawktalk/viewtopic.php?t=34151&highlight=
You can look at W.B Scott and E.J. Crossman, Freshwater Fishes of Canada, Bull.184 Fisheries Research Board of Canada, Ottawa, 1973, for detailed descriptions of Arctic char and Brook trout. Or D.EE McAlliter and B.W.Coad’s Fishes of Canada’s National Region 1974. Or any of the other scientific systemmatic research done since.
Also, if you can get your hands on a copy of “Chasse & Peche” 2008 vol. 16 no.4. There is an excellent article on Quebec Reds. It will all educate you. And you’ll need more than the pyloric caeca numbers, there are regional differences, apparently.
Lake trout 93 – 208 pyloric caeca
Splake 65 – 85
Speckles 23 – 55
Arctic char (=Quebec reds) 36 – 53 in Eastern populations, so it overlaps with speckles. Too bad.
And if you are at the fish counter in your supermarket, and they have Arctic char for sale, have a look. Notice the difference. Quebec reds. Arctic char. Same thing. VERY different from speckles.
Trout forever, Grant B.
Grant, I actually sent you two PM’s yesterday…hoping to continue this in private..but you have yet to respond…perhaps you have another email addy other than the windymaples one?
As I mentioned in those messages, I will be counting phyloric caeca this spring and documenting the features more closely…as far as looking like stocked trout, these fish certainly do NOT..many of the trout I’ve pulled from Kenauk are typical of stocked fish..not to take anything away from them..but they do show signs of life in a concrete holding tank..caudal and anal fins being warn down by swimming in the tanks and even some had been fin-clipped. The native trout do not look the same..
Once I have investigated the fish this spring more closely, if they do turn out to be brook trout, I will be the first to admit it..
My email address is and I would appreciate it if you could contact me there, as I had another issue I’d like to discuss..
Outdoorsguy
Grant, have you ever considered the existence of remnant populations of QC Red-Brook trout hybrids? As you well know, unlike hatchery produced F1 splake, neither the brookie nor the red trout are sterile..so why couldn’t a somewhat naturally occurring hybrid of the two species exist in the wild?
From what I can recall of the biology and behaviour of both species..they are both fall spawners and we already know that they can and have cohabitated…so the possibility is there.
I know specks usually travel to small stream tribs and prefer spring upwellings to spawn, but perhaps along the way somewhere a QC red male dropped in for a visit..throwing a proverbial wrench (& some milt) into both natural strains….hehe
It would be a good question for Dr. Crossman. I remember going to one of his lectures….a very wise man when it comes to fish!
Outdoorsguy