Algonquin Adventures / Pen bass?

**Posted by DanPM** 6/22/2016 7:21 pm

I'm confused about the smallmouth bass of Pen Lake or lack thereof.

Jeff's map indicates smallmouth in the lake, and I consider that generally pretty accurate, not exhaustive but accurate. Plenty of people seem to go to Pen Lake looking for bass. And Fish ON-Line says they're there (though that's less reliable).

But on the flip side: the Fish of APP booklet has a map that marks where smallies live and doesn't mark Pen (though I don't expect that to be completely exhaustive); I can't find any report online in which anyone actually caught a bass in Pen, and I even saw a thread from our old network54 forum in which no less an authority than Greg commented that bass haven't entered Pen.

So what gives? I know Jeff's map will sometimes indicate a species in a lake that's really just a very rare occurrence, like brook trout in Louisa, but bass are so invasive that I'd think it's an all or nothing thing with them, they've either infested the lake or they haven't. Especially a lake like Pen that has so much shallow weedy shoreline. Can anyone reconcile the contradiction?

**Posted by nvm** 5/30/2018 2:56 pm

I'm going to bump this thread, with the same question. Anyone else with experience on Pen? Also, how's Rock or maybe Night for bass?

**Posted by swedish pimple** 5/30/2018 5:52 pm

i have caught many jumbo perch in pen lake. no bass yet,, opie has great smallies, smoke lake, north tea, manitou, all along the highway, galeariry lake in whitney.
and wams reef south of smoke.

**Posted by Was Hardcore** 5/30/2018 5:55 pm

For years Manitou was said to have bass but wasn't listed in the book. We never caught any but I always figured it was too early in the season and they just weren't active. Now people catch them there all the time. Seeing how its part of the Mad and is downstream of other lakes that have bass my guess is they must certainly be there. Sorry to contradict you Greg but you know how insidious bass are.

Last edited by Was Hardcore (5/30/2018 5:56 pm)

**Posted by nvm** 5/30/2018 9:48 pm

Was Hardcore wrote:
For years Manitou was said to have bass but wasn't listed in the book. We never caught any but I always figured it was too early in the season and they just weren't active. Now people catch them there all the time. Seeing how its part of the Mad and is downstream of other lakes that have bass my guess is they must certainly be there. Sorry to contradict you Greg but you know how insidious bass are.

Do you mean 'part of the Amable du Fond'? I know there are bass in Manitou now- like you said, downstream of North Tea and all that. Or were you referring to there being bass in Pen now?

Last edited by nvm (5/30/2018 9:51 pm)

**Posted by DanPM** 5/30/2018 10:30 pm

Back when I posted this thread and didn't get answers on it, I did some digging and came to the conclusion that there are no bass in Pen Lake. The bass symbol on Jeff's Map must have been a mistake. I looked through lots of fishing-related trip reports online and no one seems to have caught a bass there, and when bass get into a lake they usually become quite abundant.

But the most convincing thing I found when I looked into it was this study from 2011 that looked at the ecological impacts of large non-native predatory fish on lakes in Algonquin. As you can see for example in Table 1 on page 340, Pen Lake is actually used as an example of a lake that does NOT have any such non-native species.

And though not quite on topic, one interesting thing to me about the article is that they did their own update of the invasive species present in the subject lakes -- seems the info I've been going on comes from a c. 1990 survey by the ROM. Based on the author's fieldwork, it appears that since then, pike have moved into Galeairy Lake and walleye into Rock Lake, meaning they've each moved upstream 1 dam. Also pike have entered Bridle Lake.

(since we're talking about non-native species, I assume I can name small lakes?)

nvm (to your last post) -- I think Was Hardcore was arguing that there are probably bass in Pen because it's on the Madawaska and there are bass upstream of it. However, I disagree: to my knowledge there are no bass in lakes upstream of Pen. Upstream of Rock on the Madawaska River corridor, yes, certainly there are bass there, but Pen isn't online to that system, it's on the South Madawaska, which I don't think includes any bass lakes.

**Posted by nvm** 5/31/2018 9:12 am

Thanks for the link to that article, and your thoughts. It seems like it's a steady march upstream for the invasives- what a shame. Nice to hear they're not in Pen yet though.

**Posted by D Smith** 11/22/2018 2:37 pm

Hi Dan,

I'm pretty sure you're right about there being no bass in Pen.

Here's a link to the Aquatic ecology, history, and diversity of Algonquin Provincial Park report: http://www.harkness.ca/wp_harkness/wp-content/uploads/SRB-IR-10_AquaticEcologyHistoryAndDiversityOfAlgonquinProvincialPark.pdf

Page 89 of the report shows the currently known introduced, and native, distribution of SMB in the Park.

I've angled a few bass mid-way up the rapids between Rock and Pen so fingers crossed that nobody thinks its cool to transport a few up and over the rapids!

**Posted by DanPM** 11/23/2018 10:58 am

Thanks for the link D Smith! Lots of interesting info in that report, I'll have to spend some time going through it.