My little story…

MARIO LEDUC ICE FISHING CENTER

At the age of 15, I was working for an outfitter on the Ste-Anne River, like many kids my age. It has to be said that this industry created many vacation jobs for the teenagers of Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérade.

This outfitter, Mr. Robert Mailhot, taught me just about everything I needed to know about fishing for small channel fish. So much so, that at the age of 26, I became the owner of my own fishing business.

In those days, there were some 1,500 shacks on the ice, because that’s what you had to call them. They have nothing in common with today’s spacious, comfortable cottages. Ice fishing was a booming sport. Biologist Yves Mailhot did some tests and came to the conclusion that sport fishing and commercial fishing together caught no more than 3% of the total tomcod (another name for channel fish) population.

At one time, commercial fishing was allowed at the entrance of the river which resulted in a significant decrease in the catch for sport fishermen. The number of fishing huts then increased in these years from 1500 to between 400 and 500. The number of outfitters also decreased considerably. From about 52 outfitters, we went from about 15 to 20. It was a really difficult time and the morale of the troops was down.

Thanks to the hard work of our president at the time, Mr. Guy-Paul Brouillette and our faithful biologist Mr. Yves Mailhot, a moratorium was issued for the commercial fishery and little by little, the catches increased and so did the satisfaction of our customers. We had returned to abundance as in the beautiful 1970s. We found a second wind.

Nowadays, fishing has really evolved with our ways of doing things. We can now call our fishing huts “fishing cabins”. If in the past, each cabin could accommodate few people, the cottages of nowadays are of different sizes and can accommodate from 4 to 24 people for our part. Fishing for small fish in the channels has become a family activity and people like to get together to perpetuate a tradition that brings families and friends together. Some come here to celebrate the new year, others come to do a unique activity and take advantage of this time to play outside. One thing is certain, few do not come back!!!!