(MNR personnel take measurements of a bass caught during this year's Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship)The bass fishery in Rainy Lake continues to be strong.
That according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The Ministry used the recent Fort Frances Canadian Bass tournament as an opportunity to study bass, and area biologist Darryl McLeod says they are looking good.
"It's a real healthy smallmouth bass fishery," says McLeod. "We've been tracking it since 1995. It got better in the 1990's and has been maintaining itself at a real high quality since."
McLeod says they've been obtaining some good information from the Championship.
One of the key pieces of information has been the various age classes of the fish.
"We can look at how strong each year class is in the bass population right back to 1995 and predict how the fishing might be. Since 2000, we've had about 5 or 6 really poor year classes in bass largely driven by climate.
McLeod says it just one factor that could impact the fishery in the future.
But he points 15 years of tournament fishing on the lake has not had a negative impact.
