Species: Blue Walleye - (Sander vitreus glaucus) or (Stizostedion vitreum glaucum)
Location: Ontario
Name Variations: Blue Pike, Blue Pickerel
Status: Extinct
The Campbell Status Report of 1985 officially declared the Blue Walleye extinct. The last Blue Walleye to be officially recognized as a Blue Walleye by the MNR was caught in Lake Erie in 1965. MNR is an acronym for Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
Back in 1993, I was fishing on Spotted Lake, which is a portage lake off of Esnagami Lake near Nakina, which is a fly-in lake. Eric Lund, the owner of Esnagami Lodge, told my friend Greg and myself to go over to Spotted Lake for some Blue Walleyes. We did the portage and guess what, we caught about 75 Walleyes and 6 or 7 of them were blue. I mean DARK BLUE!!! Even their meat was blue. My friend Greg has caught Blue Walleyes in other lakes north of Nakina back when his parents owned Twin Lakes Outfitters.
After that, I reported catching Blue Walleyes to the MNR and about three weeks later I had a phone call from a biologist in North Bay. He assured me that Blue Walleye are extinct and that the walleyes we were catching were just regular Walleyes but the acidity of the water made them blue.
My Response: I could see in a large lake that there would be different areas with different acid levels. It is common knowledge that acidity does affect the color of shallow water fish like bluegills. Spotted Lake was a tiny little lake (4 acres) with no streams running in. We caught all our Walleyes in the same spot, which was a deep hole at the north end of the lake.
My question is: how can only 10% of the Walleye population be affected by the acidity of the water when they are all in the same Water. Another argument is how come we either caught Walleyes that were yellow, or Walleyes that were blue. We did not catch any half and half.
The MNR officially declared the Aurora Trout
