Tooms Lake survey indicates big fish

A fishery performance assessment was recently undertaken at Tooms Lake to establish an estimate of the brown trout population size and to examine recruitment of younger fish into the fishery from previous stockings and natural recruitment.  The survey was also used to obtain the range of weights and lengths for both brown trout and rainbow trout.

In total, 96 box traps were set throughout the lake over two nights.  In total, 645 trout were captured.  This consisted of 562 brown trout and 83 rainbow trout.  A small amount of electrofishing was also undertaken using the electrofishing boat, with 25 brown and 8 rainbow trout captured.

To allow for the brown trout population size to be estimated, 3850 brown trout collected from Great Lake during early June had their adipose fin clipped before being released into Tooms Lake.  The proportion of these fin clipped fish as part of the total catch of brown trout suggests the population to be around 19,770 fish (plus or minus 3,253).  Non fin clipped brown trout ranged in ranged in size from around 1 kg to 4.9 kg.  A large number of brown trout were in the 1.8 – 2.5 kg range, with a reasonable number in the 3 – 3.5 kg range.  Most fin clipped brown trout were around 0.7 – 1.2 kg.

There was strong evidence of failed natural recruitment over the past two years and failure of a stocking of 30,000 triploid browns during late 2013.

Rainbow trout represented around 13% of the catch, with a range of size classes present as a result of the stocking of fingerlings, yearlings and adult rainbow trout over the last three years.

It should be noted that these are preliminary results and once the data has been collated and interrogated, these figures may change slightly.

At this stage, it appears that Tooms Lake has a low population of large brown trout, together with a small number of rainbow trout, all in exceptional condition.  Anglers planning to fish this lake at the start of the season should be aware that the water level is currently at a low level with the launching of small boats still be possible but larger boats could be difficult. Boat operators are advised to make a detailed check of the ramp before attempting to launch and beware of submerged stumps and logs.