Catch of the day

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/05/2019 (2320 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

People with nets and buckets line the shores of the Whitemud River — on a stretch of the meandering waterway 30 kilometre northwest of Portage la Prairie — as the sun sinks below the horizon.

If you look closer, you see the silver glint of fish struggling upstream, some jumping clear out of the water in a desperate attempt to make headway. These are suckers, a freshwater fish with a downward-pointing mouth and iridescent grey-brown scales. The bottom feeders make the journey from Lake Manitoba to their spawning grounds every year, and for many Manitobans, it’s one of the first signs of spring.

The glut of fish in the river, especially where they get stuck in the rapids near Westbourne, attracts fishers of all kinds. All that’s needed is a net and a pair of rubber boots. Although some of the people lining the banks are camo-clad fishing pros, others shriek at the feel of scales against their hands. The water is so full of fish that people trip over them as they walk through the rushing water. Some simply reach in with their bare hands to scoop the writhing bodies out.

“We can them, fry them, smoke them,” says Heinrich Hoppe, who has been coming to feast off of the run for 14 years now.

Hoppe and his wife, Stefanie, steadily fill their buckets with the air of a practised team. After catching more than 100, the pair load the last two buckets of fish into the car before heading home. Enough to last until next spring, when the cycle starts anew.