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Why Is The Ganaraska River Closed for Salmon Fishing?
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Mar 26, 2025
Fish'n Canada co-hosts Angelo and Pete interview Jim McCormack, Director of Parks, Recreation, and Culture for the Municipality of Port Hope about the controversial decision to close public access to the Ganaraska during the Salmon migration. ► Subscribe http://bit.ly/youtube-fishncanada Don't forget to leave a COMMENT and give us a LIKE if you enjoyed what you saw. SUBSCRIBE for new videos and episodes released weekly! CONNECT WITH US -------------------------------- ► WEBSITE http://fishncanada.com ► FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/FishnCanada/ ► INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/fishncanada... ► TWITTER https://twitter.com/angeloviolafnc/ One of Canada's longest-running fishing shows, Fish'n Canada travels from coast to coast in search of trophy fishing opportunities. First started by brothers Angelo and Reno Viola in 1986, The Fish’n Canada Show has been on the air for over 30 years. Today, Angelo is joined by lifelong fishing buddy, Peter Bowman, and the pair continue to travel across Canada educating anglers using the experience they’ve gained over the years
View Video Transcript
0:00
speaking of being closed off uh covet viruses and all that as they are
0:06
in the east coast um early this year
0:11
i had the pleasure of uh having this gentleman on as a guest on outdoor general radio
0:17
and the reason we brought him on because they had announced that they were going
0:23
to take it upon themselves to close the fishing access
0:29
to the fish on the ganaraska river uh out of the community of port hope the town of port hope and so we had them on to talk to us
0:36
about it and and it raised quite a big kfl as we all know but they did it
0:43
and it worked and now um it works so well that they would like
0:50
to use that same philosophy of closing access to those
0:58
fish during peak periods so that they don't get folks like me coming in there and fishing for
1:05
them uh during during this uh period of of of covet so uh to speak to us about
1:13
that he is uh director with the municipality of port hope uh department of parks recreation and
1:19
culture uh his name is jim mccormick hey jim always good good good
1:27
good so first of all uh let's talk about what happened uh early in the year with the steelhead run
1:34
that you know i'll be honest with you i was i was a kid i remember my dad
1:40
taking me there to to see this this phenomenal run of steelhead that you
1:45
folks had in the town of port hope um so it's been around for
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at least 55 years i'm gonna say i'm thinking somewhere in
1:56
that area but but in 2020 i believe for the first time
2:02
you guys shut it down opening season was not available for anglers to come and
2:09
and experience it how did it go uh it actually went quite well we were
2:16
quite quite pleased that you know visitors coming to our community respected the
2:22
decision of council to close access to municipal properties that border the river um i would say it probably didn't go
2:28
over quite as well with our residents because unfortunately they weren't able to access our trails and and those
2:35
specific park lands right um but you know it it was a matter of ensuring that we
2:41
didn't have large crowds traversing up and down our trails and there are areas along our trails where you could access the river
2:48
uh and be on federal property excuse me where you know we really wouldn't have a say in it so that was the decision that was
2:54
made um but you know when you explained it residents they understood and they and they appreciated it um but
3:00
it was a fairly short closure it was only i think it was about three weeks uh and we were we we reopened that the parks
3:07
and and people have been out enjoying it ever since hey jim you mentioned uh i want to
3:12
see if you talk to the people or got a feel for the people about comparing yeah we're pissed off that you
3:18
took away our walking areas and our but you're not letting all these other people come in
3:24
to put the possible spread was there a balance there they said yeah you know what i'll i'll give up my little walking area
3:29
for a bit because you are doing the right thing did you get that kind of a comparison or were there were there some people just said why are you doing this why no i'm
3:35
absolutely the majority of people i mean some people just didn't understand perhaps um but but i spoke to a lot of people
3:42
whether it was on the phone or via email and once you explain to them you know the intent and the purpose of
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what we were doing and why they understood and and um you know we certainly have other
3:53
opportunities for people to walk you know there's a number of other areas where people walk on our trails um and it was a
3:59
sacrifice that we you know we're all making sacrifices when it comes to this pandemic and i think you know once
4:05
people um talk their way through it i guess you could say they were a lot more understanding so now our residents were
4:12
were actually really understanding even though you know their initial reaction you know they weren't crazy about not
4:18
being able to walk the trails in their mind they're like well just block the river but let us walk the trails you know one of the analogies i said
4:24
back to one individual was a little upset i said well how would you like it if you know we allowed fishing on the river but we
4:30
didn't allow people to walk the trail i said you gotta we gotta we've gotta be equitable and
4:35
fair to all and and unfortunately it does mean sacrifices for both and and when you explain it in that manner
4:41
then then they were quite they were really good about it and i had some great conversations with our residents so
4:47
i i remember a gym um you know these these huge crowds um that would show up
4:54
in port hope anywhere along the ganaraska and and in fact a lot of a lot of uh overnight camping and people
5:01
sleeping in their vans until you know the stroke of midnight when it was legal to fish
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friday evening at midnight and lineups and and and three and four deep on the rivers trying to get a
5:13
rotten water so none of that happened this spring no none no nobody nobody showed up i
5:20
don't even think we issued a ticket um which was good i mean and that wasn't our intent we don't want to go out and
5:26
find people um for for accessing the property there might have been a few people who
5:31
claimed they didn't know or ducked under the rope but you know our bylaw or our police would would approach them and and they
5:38
would lead peacefully and that was it but you're correct you know i would say though to be honest angelo
5:44
that the numbers that we used to have like when i started here 23 years ago i remember them setting up tents in
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optimus park right by jocelyn street by the mostly street bridge on the monday morning before the opener
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oh and by friday afternoon that park there was people in the outfield there was people
6:03
everywhere and and it's it's slowly kind of died off a little bit i don't know why
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if if people are going to other areas there's there isn't as much interest but but we actually have it in our parks
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bylaw because our parks bylaw there's no camping permitted on any municipal property but we have an exemption in our bylaw
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that says on the for the for the fourth saturday of the month in april people can camp in these specific
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parks we're one of the few municipalities that permit it um because we do welcome anglers you know for the most part or during
6:35
normal times we welcome our anglers that's why we have a fish cleaning station right and and that's why we
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promote it through our tourism as far as you know portal being a destination for fishing i lived in porto for many years jim as
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you know and as you know the audience might not know and the opening trout
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is is as big in that town as anything in any other town like i mean it is the highlight
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of the year um except for float your fanny down to ganny i agree
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that's very popular too but i think and jim bill to tell us i think the opening trail would probably dwarf that and that's in my opinion with
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people no no oh you're fanny no we know your fanny we get about 10 000
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people really yeah my mistake what about with the opening show then what would you get for
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that uh it's probably in the it's hard to say i would say probably in and around a
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thousand for that weekend yes by the way in that range right now now we're talking okay i'm
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maybe that's moderate i'm talking modern day modern day back you know 20 years ago pete yeah it was
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it was a lot bigger
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who are not familiar with what we're talking about go online and check it out it's called float your fanny down the ganny
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it is it is uh a must-do it's a bucket list deal it is that does
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not involve a whole lot of skill some folks might say it doesn't involve a whole lot of brain matter
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but it is without question one of the most fun-filled events anywhere in canada
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and anybody can come in and participate so i'll give you a tip rent or buy a wetsuit because if you do
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it and you don't have a wetsuit because me and my buddies the first year we did it we didn't have wednesdays yeah let's
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just go and give her my god we have never been so cold in our eyes all of us in that whole rap we're
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like what if the hell is so fun about this but once we look at it
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and this and this year for the first time since 1981 that event was cancelled wow yeah
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such a shame it's a shame for sure all right so that's behind us now let's move yeah
8:54
first of all i'm assuming it was considered to be a success i mean that as much as you can
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you know say canceling a a an event like that is successful but in terms of health did it have the
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the results that you were looking for uh absolutely i mean the objective was to
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to um to basically restrict people from coming to our community and
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spending time in our community so from that perspective yes it did work um really the anglers
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themselves even them they were you know they understood they were you know they didn't like it and i don't
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blame them i wouldn't like it either but um but they understood and so i would
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say yes it was a success it achieved the objective the numbers in portal have remained very low
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um and in northumberland county for that matter um i know there was a recent case just last week
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in northumberland county in our area but um the numbers have remained low throughout the pandemic in this area
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okay how the uh was the uh the uh social media
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backlash did you get land based it at all well maybe not so much me but um
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certainly councils um there's a lot of very negative comments uh on there about
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council in their decision making a lot of people questioning council's authority to do so but
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it's very clear in the municipal act the council has the right to govern uh and and pass bylaws with respect to
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use of their properties right you know no different than we restrict other things on in parkland you know we don't permit people to practice
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golf as an example um so they they certainly do have that authority and they've exercised it and
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i know a lot of people think it's an overreaction um but for anybody who's been in portal particularly in the last
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you know especially in the last five or six years um it it is unbelievable how many people
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are in our community especially on the weekends we're talking thousands and thousands of
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people and i want to make something really clear there's been a lot of people saying they're picking on fishermen
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they don't like anglers and that's the furthest thing from the truth you know we we've been working for the
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last five years to try to address some of the illegal and unethical behaviors and angelo you
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and i talked about on the radio about four years ago and we have a working group with representatives from the ministry of
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natural resources and forestry ontario federation of anglers and hunters the conservation authority our
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local portal police and staff to to try to address the issues through
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increased enforcement um our portal police service are now um trained to
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to enforce the fisheries act and the fishing regulations in ontario
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we set aside eight thousand dollars a year in the in the police budget to provide
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dedicated patrols on the river on with a focus on the weekends and that's all those officers do is walk up
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and down that river they check licenses and they're looking for any illegal behaviors um and we partner with the mrf on that
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same mnrf on that same initiative we've had the offh and the mnrf um
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setting up display booths in our downtown core um to educate the public
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and the anglers on you know on on the life cycle of the salmon the purpose of the salmon as to why they're here
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because we all know they're not uh they're not uh native to lake ontario they were stocked for the purpose of
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sport fishing but also trying to you know educate people on practicing ethical behavior when it comes to
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fishing so we've we've put a lot of time and effort and energy into this program
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um but to be quite frank the purpose of doing this isn't just the anglers because i would
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argue with anybody that we get even more um i'll call them fish
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viewers or tourists that come and all they're coming to do is watch the fish that's it they walk up and down our
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trails they look at the the pools especially the shallow pools downtown and they congregate um all through our
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community we we had 48 tour buses register with the municipality last year
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for the month of september alone and that's just the ones that registered wow wow yeah and then you've got
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the people that come by vehicle and it it is it is packed for that for a child
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you know i'm going to say between the ages of four and ten i think there is no more memorable
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experience than standing on the on the banks of the ganaraska river right at the uh
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at the ladder at the fish ladder and watching those fish jump into the baskets
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i don't think there's anything more um memorable in a child's
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mind than seeing that happen for the first time and it is absolutely breathtaking and that's where i got my first taste of
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it was in ah watching those magnificent fish jumping
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up the waterfall and it was incredible and so yeah absolutely right it's not just about
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the catching there's so much more that that fishery gives us that we
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kind of take for granted you know that's correct by the way i was just thinking as you were talking i was just saying it
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to you and i let's make something perfectly clear port hope and and and and and council and and and mnrf and
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and the offh and everybody else who's who's putting all this effort into to police that fishery
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and um and educate people the unfortunate part is that it's a small percentage of the
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angling community that makes that necessary because by and large most anglers
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are law abiding uh caring conservationists wildlife managers in their own right and
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they understand all of these things but it's always that small percentage it's the same as social media it's the
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same as the backlash it's always a small percentage that are the most vocal that seem to get all the attention
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seem to get all of the oil um on the on the axle and then that's the unfortunate part
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really because most people i think respect what you folks have got in port hope with this fishery
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you know in in my opinion this is just my personal opinion it generally speaking you're correct in
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these certain circumstances it is a small percentage that basically ruins it for the rest but i have to say i walk that river on
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weekends and you know when i'm off i walk when i'm working and it's not i'm afraid to say it's not
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a small percentage of people that are abusing that fishery it's it's a much larger percentage than a lot of people might
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might think i mean we've seen people we've seen people netting the fish i've seen people just
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walk in the water and literally grab them by the tail and drag them out and throw them in their cooler
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um you know gutting the gutting the fish in our library parking lot and and taking the road and leaving the
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carcass either in you know on the on the park we found carcasses in the porta potties
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the extra porta potties that we rent every year oh my god we found them in the bushes we found them on private property
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and i've seen it and there are a ton of great anglers that come here and fish and they respect the rules and
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abide the rules but there is still a fairly large number of individuals that come here
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and abuse the fishery and it's it's a sad thing to watch i i don't understand why um in the in the trout season that it's
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the exact opposite yeah you you would rarely if at all see somebody in there that's
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that's behaving in that type of manner the the trout fishermen are extremely respectful
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and respectful of our community but when it comes to the salmon and the garbage that's left behind the fishing line
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um it's you know i wish i wish you were right but in my opinion it's a it's a much larger
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number perhaps what a lot would think there's probably a comparison to
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uh in the spring steelhead in the spring you've had all these hardcore really dedicated
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anglers have been waiting all year for this opener right now trans transfer that into the fall where
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they've been fishing all year now they've done their steelhead they've done their walleye they've done the fast now the anticipation isn't so strong so they
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could say i don't want to go to that salmon there's too many other people in there anyways there's already too many of these lugins that are doing this kind
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of stuff to begin with so i might not even say you probably got a way less percentage i'm guessing
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of hardcore ardent law-abiding anglers uh that are salmon fishing than there
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than you have in the spring for the steelhead right which is that is because i i'll guarantee you
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the law breakers in the spring that are fishing steelhead are not fishings they're poaching steelhead are going to get
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crucified if not beat up by the the good anglers out there they're going to say hey pal get the hell off this we are going to call you
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in well i got well there's if that a lot lesser of that is happening in the fall then these guys can get away with it too unfortunately right so
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yeah and you know perhaps it's just the attitude of you know well the fish are going to die anyway so who cares sure
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and they treat them that way i mean i've seen i caught i saw a guy last year snag one in the back he dragged it in and he's and he took
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the hook out he was going to put it in his cooler and i was standing there i said buddy you you snagged that fish you got to let
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it go and i got no speak english and and i said excuse me sir you'll have to put that fish back
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you know what he did he had the fish holding up in the air he dropped it down on the rocks and he kicked it into the
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river and this is the kind of stuff that our residents see all the time staff see it all the time
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yeah and and and i don't know why this lack of respect for for a species of fish that's going to go
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up and produce more salmon for people to enjoy for generations to come it boggles my mind that that attitude
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for whatever reason with the salmon exists it just it yeah it's just it's it's speechless
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i think it has a lot to do with what you guys just talked about you know the sustainability of of the creature the steelhead are
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self-sustaining they they represe reproduce uh themselves whereas we know
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salmon aren't doing that it's a put-and-take fishery it's almost like except in the ghani except in the ghana they do not stock
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salmon and haven't for what 30 years 25 years don't know that by and large the perception is
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that salmon are not self-sustaining right they're take fishery it's there for our
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enjoyment right and we can do whatever the hell we want with it and therefore it's attracting a different type of
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of user i agree and and uh that is a problem so so let's talk about what you guys are
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are suggesting or what you're actually doing i mean you're doing it by the way one of
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the problems you're gonna have if you haven't already encountered it uh and i'm reading some of the messaging on the side here you
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i know you're encountering some problems um is that it's one thing to do it in the spring of
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2020 when the entire planet is on the verge of shutting down and
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we have this unknown monster that is preparing to attack us called covet
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19 and we just don't feel safe let's hunker down that's fine although it wasn't fine you
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got some backlash too but but at least it was acceptable now the problem is that according to our chief medical
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officer we're okay and we in fact we can assemble in in larger
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groups and in fact we are in stage three and we can go to restaurants and we can do all of these
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things so i can kind of understand why you'd get some backlash now because they're saying
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okay enough is enough you did it in the spring and we bought in and we're fine we got through but don't do
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it now when the whole province is a seemingly wide open that would be your
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problem i think yeah yeah you're you're absolutely correct um but as much as our health officials
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are saying you know hey we're in stage three we can we can start to lose some restrictions we're still not out of the woods
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and that's been made very clear by the health like we need to be vigilant a diligent sorry and we need to continue
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to ensure that people are practicing safe social distancing and and following all the guidelines of health canada
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we're seeing an uptick already in ontario now over the last week and a half and knowing full well that
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from what the health officials are telling us that the likelihood of a second wave this
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fall in september is extremely high with the kids especially with the kids going back to school yeah you know these are all the the
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deciding factors in why portal looked at that but we're not talking about the spring pro fish with a few hundred
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anglers we're literally talking about thousands and thousands of people descending on port hope and council
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didn't matter what decision council made it they knew that the decision that they
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made was not going to be popular and that people were going to be upset one way or another i provided a report
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accounts and said look here's here's your opposite options and you need to provide staff direction and
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one is basically status quo um and and close the fish ladder off because the
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conservation authority had already indicated they wanted to do that uh and status quo when we would put
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extra signage up and we would have a public awareness campaign as far as you know if you're coming to portal make sure you wear a
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mask and social distance and do all those things or council your other option is
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is is do what we did in the spring and shut it down so that was that was two of the recommendations but the third
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recommendation was that we we open it up for the public and we we allow the public to
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to provide their input in their comments and so we did that and that that public
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consultation period was open for a month because council wanted to get a gauge of the community and what their reaction
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was and if the comments we received you know we did we did uh that where people could write in and we received
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about 185 comments and 62 percent of them said shut it down and i read every single comment
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and people are saying you know what it it sucks that i can't walk on the trail i don't like that but i get it and we
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want to keep our community safe we don't want to promote the spread we also did a bang your table
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um poll and we had over 200 210 responses and again 70 percent of the respondents
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said shut it down so council looked at all of that um and and they had a tough decision they
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they i know speaking the individual members of council and the mayor himself they struggled with this one like it's a
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tough call but i think in the end from their perspective they just didn't um and listening to the residents that
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there was just concern that um we are still in a pandemic no matter how you cut it
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and and this probably is not the right time to be inviting people to come to our community
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in in such large numbers and and and in the end that was a decision that they made and i mean last weekend
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was a prime example they there's a member council counted 250 people down on the east
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pier within a stretch of 200 meters 250 people and 200 meters
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and that's the problem that's the problem and that's right you'll never know it
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but by making this decision you could be avoiding uh on your
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catastrophe right you're not not a catastrophe will say but unfortunately you can't tell because you're taking precautions to stop it but
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the what if you know what if you didn't do that and all of a sudden a a number of infected people came into
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the community and it went into the stores and bought the coffees and bought the gas and did all this kind of stuff and whatever they
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did and they forgot to wear a mask and all that you could have your numbers up higher than you've ever seen you know in
25:01
an entire the entire pandemic so far in a a week's time or two weeks time so you you're making the right decision
25:08
i mean you gotta you gotta kind of be safe here right you gotta this is this is an odd situation so scary all
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right yeah it's a tough one all you have to do is start reading some of these messages that we're getting here
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and and you see that there's a real mixed opinion on what you just said pete i mean there's people are saying hey you
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know it was just announced there's a vaccine we're going to be ready in a matter of weeks like
25:31
we're we're overdoing this whole thing we got vaccines in place we're going to be okay let us do our thing
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there's still a lot and you know they may be by the way i'm not suggesting that's wrong or right
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at that point that thinking may be solid it may be the right thinking but but
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you know or maybe you don't know jim we took i particularly took on awful lot of heat the same time you were
25:58
getting shot i know you did i read it from the back okay so i i'm very familiar with with with how
26:05
quickly this thing can turn and get ugly real fast but you know we've now here we are five
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months later you know we've we're we're we're still discussing is it real is it
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not real uh is it safe is it not safe do we have a cure do we not have a cure
26:25
uh are masks really hurting or is it a hindrance to this whole process
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there's the same questions that were there five months ago are still there now so i so many unknowns yep yeah i can
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understand the emotions that that go through this this process and why people
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will make comments like i'm seeing here now um about this i'm not however
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you know i still stand with the position that that we took early in the year and that you took in
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may in april whenever it was and that is that for the sake of this one
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season for the sake of this one little personal satisfaction that we get from doing an
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event like the opening of of steelhead on the ganny or
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or the fall salmon run on the gany you know for the sake of that one moment where where it's greed
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listen i fish because i'm greedy i fish because i love what i feel when i'm out there doing these
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things i love being there so if that's not greed then i don't know what is i'm not doing it for you jim i don't go
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fishing for you i'm going for me so as far as i'm concerned
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that's greed i do it because i love it i love how i feel i love that that passion that drives me
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to go fishing so it's it's greed so my thinking is for this one time this is
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the only time this has ever happened in history i'm willing to take a break and say long right i don't
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know i have no idea but i know that if i take a more cautious approach i should have better
28:07
results when it's over so that's kind of the way i look at but having said that i can understand what what
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what they're saying there i can i'm reading comments you know i understand that hey that was
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then in the spring now is now what the hell are you doing yeah right so yeah but you know and like
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i said council had they had a really tough decision to make and and either whatever decision they made
28:29
wasn't gonna they were gonna take heat they knew that and um but i think in the end that they're listening to their to
28:35
the taxpayers of port old the residents that that they're here to serve and and it was when you looked at that 62 percent
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it was an even higher percentage of poor old presidents of that that were the ones saying you know shut it
28:48
down so um that that was all part of that deciding factor so and
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you know i actually found it interesting angela know if you saw this but there's been a lot of comments on social
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media well why not control the numbers how are we supposed to do that yeah with
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thousands of people descending on our community and again not just the fishermen the tourists that come to but
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there's even people saying they should have a fish pay to fish and i'm like really because the last
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time we had this discussion on this radio station you know that that came back loud and clear the england community were like
29:22
absolutely not no way and council said okay we won't implement it but it's it's it's a tough one i did read
29:30
one thing that was very interesting though i got to tell you and i bought into it i thought yes i could do this
29:35
and that was a lottery yeah that was a lottery you know a pandemic lottery where where you you know people
29:42
would have to submit and then and then you would pick out whether it's done for the for the on a daily basis or
29:49
whether it's done on a weekly basis or maybe even for the entire season but there would be the lottery pick
29:56
of only a certain number of people that would be able to fish the ganaraska river in 2020.
30:03
wouldn't that be cool i thought it was a great idea but potentially you know maybe that's something we look at the future as far
30:09
as trying to control the numbers that come but um i i don't know again it goes back to
30:15
the tourism piece uh it comes to the people that aren't fishing they just come to watch the fish and how do you how do you manage that
30:21
how do you stop a tour of us from pulling off the 401 and and coming into our community it's it's
30:28
a tough lottery for that that's for sure you know what i mean yeah i think in the future if this is going to carry on much
30:35
farther i think you're going to have to use common sense yeah i think you stop a
30:40
busload of tourists with kids or elderly people who have come to experience this phenomenon called
30:47
you know the ganaraska fish ladder i don't think you can stop them i don't
30:52
think you should stop them i think i think they should be allowed to do that right yep that's not your problem those people
30:59
aren't your problem by and large if you can contain them in that one area it's not like they're
31:04
walking up and down the river and and and mingling with with everybody there's a very specific area that
31:10
they're going to be uh going to to experience this you don't have to keep them you have to let them
31:17
do i don't know it's fine yeah you can't contain them a hundred percent if you have local kids in the river that are
31:22
doing something and they're all mingling and all of a sudden this bus is everybody gets infected because they're all together in the spot and it just
31:28
brings more into poor hope too so well those tour those tourist buses don't just go to the fish ladder they'll
31:34
go there first and then they'll come downtown and park downtown at lakeland place beside town hall and then they'll walk up and down
31:40
through the shallows you know from rotary bridge up to ontario street which we all know is
31:45
fantastic viewing as far as those pools and you can watch them going from one pool to the next to the
31:50
next to the next so it's it yeah it's a it's a tough one it really is
31:56
economically more beneficial jim the spring sam or spring steelhead or the fall salmon in the last couple of years
32:02
what's more economically beneficial is there one over the other um probably i would i would assume the
32:09
salmon just because the sheer volume of people is is much higher than than the than the spring run
32:15
okay so i would think it's that um we haven't had we've only had one
32:20
business that's that's complained as far as um the decision the council made to close down which which i did find a
32:26
little interesting um it's it's hard to gauge the tourism money that's spent
32:32
um not just from anglers but the tourists that do come we know our foot traffic is at its highest number in the month of september
32:38
through our downtown core um but even right now as of right now our numbers are up about 20
32:44
as far as foot traffic but our marketing and tourism departments attributing maybe some of
32:50
that to at least you know a lot of residents are staying home you know staycation and and and maybe
32:55
exploring through the downtown it's hard to say um what that impact is huh interesting
33:01
you know the province is going to have a difficult time uh moving forward for i mean not just because of the
33:07
pandemic itself but i think they're certainly in northern ontario northwestern ontario in particular
33:13
and i think to some extent here in the south as well uh we're finding out just how
33:20
big this thing is that we call fishing we're finding how we're finding out how
33:25
important it is you know in some communities it's the economic engine that drives the whole
33:31
deal in northwestern ontario fishing is in some cases 75
33:36
of the income of a community is attributed to fishing pandemic has put the spotlight on this
33:44
and i think moving forward i think in the future it it you know it augers well for the fishing
33:50
industry because there's going to be a little more attention paid to it down the road by governments in general because it's a
33:57
big big part of our economy you know obviously you guys are no exception to that uh it has been for
34:05
years in uh in port hope so um you've got an interesting uh conundrum on your hands
34:11
my friend i don't uh envy you
34:16
as we well we have we have quote we have closed the parkland it's all been closed off right okay so we did we did initiate
34:23
that on um i guess it was on wednesday right after council here's the problem you know moving forward you're gonna get
34:29
a lot of heat i can tell right now you guys are under fire and you're gonna get a lot of heat from here on in and
34:35
you're gonna do uh the best to uh to uh zig and zag and dodge and all that
34:42
stuff but my biggest concern is what do we do in the spring now
34:48
good question good question we actually had a letter from our float your fanny down the ganny committee asking the same
34:54
thing because they want to start planning and they go what do we do and i i wish i had that crystal ball to say
35:00
wow nobody looks like crystal ball right now boys nobody has that wow why i don't think until
35:06
there's a vaccine yeah exactly and even that muno is right they mean how many people get involved
35:12
with it it's according to some of our astute uh audience members uh that vaccine is
35:18
here and and we'll be using it in november so there was somebody that said don't don't
35:23
bet your last dollar on it they've already had as soon as somebody said that the next guy said yeah okay
35:29
go ahead and see how that happens that works out for you so i'll leave it up to you jim uh if you
35:35
would like to answer some of these questions you you feel free uh but we we certainly have no issues with it uh
35:42
if not i i totally am cool too i understand we didn't bring you on uh this is not a traveling uh you know
35:48
road show that we want to uh bring out uh uh our our caged
35:54
uh sideshow uh members to the audience by any means but
35:59
but you know if you feel um that that you would like to address any of it
36:06
you're it's it's entirely up to you i'll do my best i already get them now
36:13
right so emails multiple emails uh so john luke
36:19
marion says maybe i missed it but has anyone asked about surrounding communities like kohlberg
36:27
to my knowledge coburg coburg town council hasn't made the same decisions porthole
36:33
so the best my knowledge cobra creek's open on public space but it's not an issue colbert is not an
36:40
issue i would answer that by saying they don't have the ganaraska flowing through
36:45
and and that's the problem i i don't think there's many communities maybe the credit maybe the credit that
36:52
may be in terms of size uh i don't even think bowmanville
36:57
or or oshawa are anywhere even in the same discussion as that ganaraska yeah you can look at
37:05
in in port hope right east of the gannaraska is gage's creek it's a nice little creek for
37:10
for trout and salmon et cetera et cetera they won't have to shut that down because it's time it's it's a tiny trip the ganaraska
37:16
river to anybody that doesn't know about the ghana nebraska is the number one salmon and trout tributary in all of
37:22
ontario basically it's huge it's a the numbers of fishing in the saugeen i guess
37:27
there's a few of them that are that are the credits got a lot of fish but that ganny is an unbelievable avenue for these fish
37:35
to go up every spring and fall yeah i think i think the numbers 10 000 that go through the ladder every
37:41
year so here is megan here's a difference in those three rivers that you just mentioned okay so
37:47
so the credit you know um arguably gets a larger salmon run i say arguably
37:54
the saugeen gets a larger according to daryl my good friend daryl gets a larger steelhead run but there is
38:00
not a river in this province say there's not a river in this country
38:06
that gets the combination of steelhead and salmon through it that the ganderaska does
38:14
exactly that i i defy anybody to make an argument with that so it's a
38:19
very unique very unique fishery very unique uh a piece of water that that you can't
38:26
compare to anything else we've got exactly and don't ever and naturally reproducing
38:32
and that's controversy i mean and and look at the last ditch effort with the atlantic
38:37
salmon program and they've got atlantic's coming up the ganny don't get me started on atlantic's
38:42
okay now you're gonna be started in something else
38:48
uh what else we got you know even uh even the brown run that goes up the ganny i've
38:56
caught a large mold bass at the moment again either smallmouth the carpeting in there is incredible
39:01
that's just a phenomenal fishery that whole number is unbelievable yeah uh calvin wants to
39:08
know how well uh will these bands be enforced and who will enforce them what are the plans to curtail
39:15
non-compliance now you you just told us that you only hit you think you had one non-compliance uh issue in the spring
39:24
how were you forecasting the fall well this morning we had to ask a few
39:29
people to leave a specific area but for the most part they cooperated um so it will be enforced by municipal
39:36
bylaw enforcement but as well as the portal police um so i mentioned earlier about the the
39:41
dedicated paroles on the weekends patrols and they're gonna they're gonna do that for at least for the first couple of weeks just to to see how it
39:48
goes um but um you know unless somebody's really giving them a hard time
39:54
it'll it'll simply be a warning and just ask them to move on we don't like we don't want to go out and find
40:00
people i mean it it there's no advantage to the miss power a lot of people think oh you guys
40:05
are doing it for the money because you're gonna get the bylaw money well a lot of people don't know we get very very little of that money because
40:12
it's a provincial offense the province gets the majority of the cut of that fine and then the upper tier municipality the
40:19
county gets a big cut and the municipality of port hope gets a little teeny little bit of that hundred and fifty dollar
40:25
fine for trespassing so they're you know we we that's not the business
40:31
that we want to be in and being hard knows we would rather just educate people and just ask them
40:36
please cooperate i think jim you should put on all your hockey gear and uh helmet on there and those don't go down and start hacking
40:42
them with the stick they're saying get the hell out fire prep
40:49
rob um brody has got a a very interesting point uh maybe we can put that up mike um
40:56
he says also i read that only the east pier was to be closed but i got kicked off
41:02
the west pier this morning and then the road was barricaded maybe
41:08
so the but the the there was there was i i had made a statement and it was and it was it was my fault i
41:15
messed up i'm about the west pier and just maybe called a long week if you want to call it that as far as
41:21
when i answered that question but the bylaw does state all municipal properties
41:27
along the ganaraska river the west pier is municipal property it is part of the ganaraska river so
41:33
that area is closed so that for that individual i'm sorry i'll apologize i apologize to another
41:39
gentleman um the other day because i did make that statement but like i said i'm just gonna chalk it up
41:44
it's a long day and i was tired when i made that statement but it does include that particular area
41:49
i'll throw one before we get to another one mike um you're you're talking about your access
41:55
to these waterways into this waterway um how about if somebody
42:01
wants to use as much of the navigable portion of the ganaraska via watercraft
42:09
and for the purpose of fishing they were doing that this morning yeah there's people in kayaks this morning in boats there's nothing we can
42:15
do about it our boat launch is open we kept it open so people want to launch a boat
42:20
or a kayak and paddle up that's that's their prerogative there's nothing
42:26
we can do about it nor will we there you go it's just access it's just the access to our municipal properties
42:32
that's something and there's a huge fall fishery for the guys for the people that have leg boats that
42:39
just go drop out and go into the mouth of the lake and start working out there because right now those salmon are stationed right there there's a huge fishery going on right now right they're
42:46
all correct they're they're correct yeah getting launching all the time um it's actually something and i've been
42:51
talking about doing so we wouldn't mind doing it this year just to get out there and uh and and try that
42:57
shallow water salmon fishing with kind of uh medium action gear and have to chase your fish
43:03
you know what i mean it's pretty cool fishery too in itself yeah um do we want to address the uh
43:09
question from chris uh mike uh so
43:16
uh will the band be in effect for the winter months as well or just salmon run popular time the
43:22
band's until october the 15th so october 15th and then you can do whatever you want well back to normal
43:29
yeah and we engaged that you know just based on the history with again the tourists like the ganaraska closes
43:35
september 30th right north of the viaducts it closes september 30th but we kept it till october 15th because
43:41
that's still that prime tourist season as far as people coming to watch so october 15th will be the last day and we'll we'll
43:48
reopen everything is there there's another one that's interesting for people listening that don't know the the ganaraski river
43:55
the guys will fish it right up until ice and then when it ices over and once it gets steady enough for ice they go
44:00
rainbow ice fish the ice fish right there for steelhead it's crazy what and they get some beauties that drill a hole through that
44:06
ice the current the bait's going down this way boom they're pulling up a 10 pound steel head through a hole
44:13
yeah anglers are very resourceful people figure it out
44:22
he thinks people will flock to those other areas the lesser popular uh areas and
44:28
and try their luck in those waterways you know maybe they don't have as many salmon but it's going to increase the foot traffic
44:36
on those smaller waterways which it probably will uh yeah and hey i i live on shelter valley
44:42
road yeah um so shelter valley creek's right across the road from ios yeah and i still haven't seen anybody
44:49
fishing it yet surprisingly let's just look at it let's be honest we were just talking about it
44:55
that that chinook salmon run in the fall in the ganaraska river is world-class there are so many big i
45:03
mean i've experienced that i lived there like i said and i do the same thing i go down and watch them a lot of times just watch these 30 pound
45:09
fish so you see 20 or 30 of them one school that's sitting in one pool there is a 30 pound fish it's like oh my god
45:15
is this for real you know and there's just pods of them that come in and come in and come in and come in it's it's a
45:20
it's an incredible fishery so there i mean there's numbers there that's for sure so these other little shelter valley for
45:26
instance oshawa creek for instance they got them but they don't have anything like that
45:32
okay what else you got mike that's worth looking at uh i'm rooting
45:39
for canada oh okay good i have my first trip scheduled to hot lake yes
45:45
hawk lake hopefully through through uh teddy who comes on this site
45:51
quite a bit he might be on with us today um hawk lake wow gotta go michael
45:56
attah boy you're gonna love it if i mean you booked it now hopefully ted i mean ted is one of the guys that closes lodge down for the holy season
46:03
well you know there's there are some that did some that didn't if you go if that trip goes through me and michael you are going to love it you are going
46:09
to have a great time you're going to catch giant walleye and smallmouth and if you want pike in lake john if you want to go
46:15
to the back lakes you're in buddy it's going to be we've been talking to ted throughout this ordeal because he he did
46:22
make it up to hawk lake um um this year but he kept it closed as pete just said
46:27
so uh himself and his senior staff have been going out and you know it's a perfect time but
46:33
they've never had this opportunity before to go out and actually fish their lake without you know the pressure of having
46:39
guests on it and he's saying they're fighting all kinds of interesting new things that they didn't know about hawk
46:45
lake and the fishery so there's some right to this what's your opinion of that uh jim um with
46:53
the closure in the spring uh do you think they're we're going to
46:59
see some residual effects on the fishery on the steelhead fishery in the guinea
47:05
well i think that logic would say yes right if if there weren't as many um um that
47:12
were caught and capped or or disturbed from their spawning area then you would think that there would be
47:17
a benefit same with the salmon um that more than make it up upstream to spawn
47:22
you know it's it's just gonna in increase numbers and and it will work for next year too because then all those
47:28
same fish they could drop back and made it back to the lake they never got caught going up or coming down they will have a
47:33
successful spawn next you this year more official have a chance to have a successful sponsor
47:39
did the webinar um or whoever was in charge of the program i know and
47:44
there's a certain element that is uh not m r uh managed um were we still putting the
47:53
same number of fish up over the dam and through the other side did the same number of fish make it through
47:59
to their traditional spawning grounds as in previous years to the best of my
48:05
knowledge yes but i'm i can't confirm that i'm i uh that would be a question i'd have to ask my
48:11
good friend jason white who's been a volunteer at that fishway for i think 40 years now so
48:17
he would probably have that answer he's probably watching this right now so maybe he'll type maybe he'll type that answer for you
48:24
because he he's the guy that would know exactly uh how many fish were taken up um you
48:29
know year in and year out i see there's a there's a gang on our list right now there's a gang but
48:34
headed by a guy named hunter bowman i believe and he's got a few other guys christian is on there and i think
48:40
mason's on there so huh my boy my oldest boy and his and his buddies around here watching us now too
48:45
hey that's what's going on i'm glad they came in get your friends to come in here too you know they're going to subscribe to our youtube
48:50
channel while you're at it boys exactly um doug tarbot is saying that we
48:57
need to go fish steelhead near bella coola uh one of the yeah on the dean
49:04
river the famous dean river that i've heard about that yeah you're
49:10
right he's right we should go there and uh and fish that from what
49:16
world class and that's and those are good out there too right
49:23
um okay i think we're just about there's more questions here um but i i
49:30
don't mean to cut you off but we are at two o'clock uh we're supposed to be we can
49:35
we can send people to our website which has uh an article a quick article and it also
49:41
links to jim's website as well so if you want you can leave comments on ours jim can probably stay in touch with you through that through our site or you can
49:47
get a hold of jim through their website as well so it'd be a nice way to keep this going and give your opinions give your high fives if
49:54
you like it etc etc and you can stay in touch with jim on that so um jim want to thank you for joining us
50:00
today uh you were very gracious with your time and we do appreciate it i i i i won't say i know what you're going
50:08
through but i had a bit of an inkling of it myself earlier years ago i quite know what
50:14
how it feels uh you you think you're doing the right thing you think you're you got it all under control on top of
50:20
it and then you find out that a lot of people don't necessarily agree um wrong writer and different you're
50:26
making a stand the other port hope is making a stand which is very cool because um i think it's very significant
50:33
i think 2020 is the year that we we all uh took a step back and
50:40
uh did hopefully did our part to see if we could get through this crap and 21 will
50:47
i certainly hope uh be a lot different i certainly hope i will have an opportunity to go to the ganaraska river in in
50:54
april uh of this coming 2021 and bring my grandkids there to see this
51:00
phenomenal and experience this phenomenal thing called the steelhead of the ganaraska river and
51:06
and i wish you all the best of luck my friend and uh let's let's stay in touch uh uh as p said we will try and funnel
51:14
as many of the questions and queries that we get due to this particular episode on to you and maybe you can address them
51:20
and um let people know it's not the end of the world uh we just correct need to make some changes
51:26
temporarily exactly oh thanks for joining us my friend well i appreciate it i appreciate
51:33
your support and i appreciate you having me on the show it was great anytime all right
51:38
you take care man you too jim mccormick uh from the town of port hope port hope
51:45
ontario important real i have a lot of uh in that
51:50
town i'll have to tell you my friend not just either
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