OUANANICHE 



COMMERCIAL FISHING 



Commercial fishing licences issued for Ontario waters in 1949 totalled 2,675 

 and the industry employed some 3,930 persons. The principal gear fished was gill 

 nets and there were 1,071 gill net licences issued. The main areas for pound net fishing 

 were Lakes Erie, St. Clair and Rainy Lake and the total of all pound net licences for 

 Ontario was 183. Hoop net licences issued totalled 275, and the majority were issued 

 for eastern Lake Ontario, the waters of the Rideau system, in south-eastern Ontario 

 and Lake of the Woods in the Kenora district. Other commercial fishing licences 

 issued included — seines for coarse fish; separate baited hook licences for sturgeon, 

 lake trout, catfish and bullheads; and 710 commercial minnow licences. 



The harvest of commercial fish for the calendar year ending December 31, 1949 

 was 34,061,361 lbs. and the landed value of this catch amounted to $5,496,836.88. The 

 1949 production is an increase of 5,119,570 lbs. or 17.7$ over the yield of 1948. 



This 1949 production was the highest since 1945 when the catch reached 34*4 

 million. The principal factor which brought about this highest catch over the past four 

 years, may be attributed to the harvest of the blue pickerel (blue pike-perch) which 

 for 1949 was 9,830,912 lbs. This in an increase of this species of some 4,046,772 lbs. 

 or 69.9' ,■( over the previous year. 



The blue pickerel population of Lake Erie produces the bulk of the provincial 

 yield of this species and the production for Lake Erie blue pickerel for 1949 was 

 9,783.819, which is an increase of 70.4' < or 4,041,622 pounds over 1948. 



The blue pickerel in Lake Erie, as a general rule, appear in large numbers 

 every four to five years, thus the large yield of this species, in all probability, came 

 from the 1944 hatch. The previous peak production years were in 1943, 44 and 45. 

 From catch data available it would therefore seem reasonable to assume that the 

 harvest of blue pickerel in Lake Erie will drop considerably after 1950. Two other 

 species, although not as significant as the blue pickerel, contributed somewhat to 

 the overall increase in production for 1949. These were whitefish and yellow pickerel, 

 both with an increase of approximately ' j million pounds respectively over the 1948 

 yield. 



Only two species, lake herring and lake trout, showed any marked decrease in 

 catch over the previous year. The peak of the lake herring harvest in recent years 

 was reached in period 1945-47 and a decrease was anticipated in the yield of this 

 species. Lake trout, which has shown an alarming drop in the provincial annual yield 



