December 2011

Leave it to the local ice fishermen!

A surreptitious group of locals have been sniggling trout out of Corstorphine for the past few winters, but this December the hawgs began to show up--and word began to leak. It stands to reason since it was stocked with triploids not long ago and the entire basin crawls with forage. It seems sticklebacks have been somehow added to the food chain.

Corstorphine underwent the same 2 year evaluation program as do all the FLIPPR lakes developed to date. From 2000 to 2003 it was crystalline for visibility but turned chocolate when the aerator was first fired up. It has always been a weedy, fertile water body with tons of forage, mainly consisting of gammarus scuds -- unbelievable numbers of gammarus scuds. Speculation was that it would take some time to chow down the forage base until fish numbers and appetites produce feeding periods extending longer than five minutes. Perhaps the unsolicited "moonlight" addition of sticklebacks put a dent in immature stages of the scuds?

In any case ice fishermen are happy with the result, even if open water anglers continue to bypass it.

Perhaps they have had good reason until the autumn of 2011 when the turbidity abated to the point of its original crystalline state. Plus, with Antons, Tokaryk, Patterson and Pybus producing results as they do, why bother?

Largest rainbow released to date (all fish over 45cm must be released in such designated trophy waters) was 23 inches and fat as a hawg -- reawaking and invoking heady memories of bygone Silver Beach days and its silvered legless pigs.

Who knows? Open water anglers may even "discover" what the boys on the ice have known for some time.

There IS fish in Corstorphine Lake!