While fishing in Lake Ontario off the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (PNGS) this past mid-January, Oakville angler Tim Rourke landed a large “Wiper”, a cross between a White Bass (Morone chrysops) and Striped Bass (M. saxatilis). Rourke boated a 6.8 kilogram specimen of one of the province’s least-known hybrid fish on that balmy -12°C day. The warm-water discharge from the PNGS attracts a variety of species, especially in cold weather. Trout and salmon are common, but anglers can also catch bass, walleye, pike, panfish and drum. Read more

When most people brag about a big fish they’ve caught, they hold their arms out wide to show just how huge their catch was. Brent Shirley caught a big fish, too – a world record breaker. But his fish would fit easily in the palm of his hand. Shirley made his record-breaking catch when he was doing fisheries monitoring work in August on the Talbot River, a tributary to Lake Simcoe. Read more

AFS President Don Jackson has been working closely with the other AFS officers and the AFS executive director to develop a plan for responding to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It has been sent to federal agencies. The plan (American Fisheries Society Oil Spill Initiative), in conjunction with the “President’s Hook” in the July 2010 issue of Fisheries (Vol 35 No 7), gives a framework for discussions with members of your respective subunits regarding the AFS response to the spill.