CANADIAN LAKES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1938, Page 8

CANADIAN LAKES

RESTOCKING BY PLANES. SUCCESS ACHIEVED. Experiments of dropping fish a distance of from 100 to 1000 feet by means of an aeroplane to restock lakes in the Canadian mountains have proved successful. This method was first tried out in the Laurentian mountain lakes. Fine cotton nets were submerged on a wooden frame 100 feet long, and fingerlings were dropped from a hydroplane travelling at a speed of 140 feet a second and at a height of 400 feet. Skilful piloting enabled “direct hits”, to be scored. The fish were .then taken from the nets by observers, who found 95 per cent of them were alive and uninjured. Positive evidence of the success of these experiments was seen by the fact that 4-inch’ fish were taken from a Quebec Provincial Government fish culture station and deposited by means of an aeroplane in a virgin lake, a fin of each fish having been cut to identify it. The following year many of the fish were caught and were from nine to 10 inches long. Furcner experiments showed that fish up to 31b in weight could be dropped from a height of 1000 feet and remain uninjured.

By the use of these improved methods, 10,000 to 15,000 fingerlings could be transported in one trip of the aeroplane and in one day 100,000 could be transferred to and deposited in different lakes—a task that would take about a month by truck and would be much more costly. Canada’s inland fisheries are vast and still far from exhausted, but both .Federal and Provincial Governments are using every modern invention and scientific development to restock those lakes which have already given enormous supplies of fish to both sporting and commercial fishermen.