66 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



The trout in these waters is, as before mentioned, not particularly 

 valuable as a commercial fish, but it is, nevertheless, held in local esteem 

 as a sporting fish, especially in the spring and fall when the waters are 

 cool. The mascalonge is not a commercial fish under present regula- 

 tions, and its disappearance is to be deplored alike from its attractive 

 qualities to the angler as from the evidence thus adduced of inefficient 

 supervision of the fisheries. The pickerel, which is a commercial fish of 

 considerable value, is also highly attractive to many anglers, and its 

 presence throughout the waters of this region is, therefore, much to be 

 desired. These fish are all indigenous to these waters and formerly 

 abounded in them, and if the ambition of the citizens of Kenora to make 

 Lake of the Woods the great summer gathering place for the middle west 

 of America is to be achieved, something will have to be done to replenish 

 and maintain the supply of all these varieties, not only in the immediate 

 vicinity of Kenora, but also over a goodly portion, at least, of the North- 

 ern zone. To prohibit commercial fishing, however, throughout the 

 Northern zone, as desired by many of the citizens of Kenora, would be a 

 serious blow to the Canadian commercial fishing industry of this lake, 

 for it would remove more than half the available area from the opera- 

 tions of the net fishermen, and, moreover, that area which is probably 

 the most prolific at the present time, the most easily fished, and the near- 

 est to the logical and actual headquarters of the commercial fishing in- 

 dustry of these waters at Kenora. Such a result would not appear to be 

 at all desirable or in the best interests of the surrounding district, for 

 the commercial fisheries, properly conducted, are an obvious and tangi- 

 ble asset of no small value, and with the local and adjacent fish markets 

 fostered and developed should prove of economic and material benefit 

 alike to the citizens of the region and to the summer visitors who might 

 be attracted thereto. 



Compromises are proverbially unsatisfactory to all parties, but in 

 this case it would seem that some middle course is unavoidable if the 

 greatest value to the Province is to be extracted from the possession of 

 this uniquely beautiful, attractive and, at the same time, commercially 

 productive area of water and countless islands. 



The key to the situation would appear to lie in control. At the 

 present time there is an overseer at Kenora burdened with a vast dis- 

 trict extending from the Manitoba boundary to Port Arthur, and in- 

 cluding the commercial and angling fisheries of Lake of the Woods, who, 

 be it noted, is not even provided with a boat of his own wherewith to in- 

 spect the fishermen at work or supervise the collection of non-resident 

 angler's tiax, but has to depend on what craft he may be able to hire for 

 the purpose of the occasional tours of inspection which the care of so 

 great a district alone enables him to undertake. Obviously during the 

 fishing season there is ample work for at least one man patrolling the 

 lake to see that the licensed nets are properly set, that no illegal nets 

 are being used, and that poachers from across the line are not fishing in 



