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Georgian Bay northern Lake Huron
Owen Sound THE SUN TIMES Published on: August 29, 2019
Fish heftier but fewer at Salmon Spectacular.
Excerpt:
Derby people say the fish in the bay are getting bigger, as the leader board clearly suggests.
The reasons aren’t as obvious but people point to possibly more plentiful smelt offering a more nutritious meal for our bigger, finned friends.
It was Day 7 of the Owen Sound Salmon Spectacular fishing derby Thursday and by mid-afternoon the leader board remained unchanged.
Wayne Hollett’s top chinook salmon, at 29.5 pounds, easily bests last year’s 23.15-lb. derby winner. And the daily Top 10 board boasted a couple of 20-plus pounders. The top lake trout remains the 18.05 catch by 13-year-old Logan King of Guelph.
You’d have to go back to 2000 to find a bigger winning salmon, said derby co-chair John Ford.
“I’m not going to try to pretend that I know why. Except that they’ve had more to eat, I mean that’s pretty obvious,” Ford said. “There’s no question that the fish are larger.”
The fish were expected to be bigger this year because they were bigger in the Chantry Chinook Classic Salmon Derby in Lake Huron, Ford said. It was won a couple weeks ago by Walkerton’s Caitlin Widdes, with a salmon weighing 28.96 lbs.
Ford said the fish “certainly” have been eating smelt over the last few years. “So I have to assume there are more smelt out there. But I don’t know that.”

Nice wild fish! I’d like to learn which rivers over there are pumping out all those fish and how the fishing is on them. I’m surprised I’m not hearing more from the salmon lobbyists about protecting the wild spawners since that seems to be the source for so many of the kings we catch.