Video – Fish Lift Tradition Carries On in Cobourg

Pete Fisher
9 months ago
• Categories: Community, Editor Choice, Local

With the help of volunteers, hundreds of Rainbow trout were lifted over Pratt’s Pond dam on Saturday, March 30, 2024.

Christine Jubenville-Clarke organized the event and said it’s been going on for over 60 years.

Approximately 60 volunteers from youths to seniors came out the “push” the trout up Cobourg Creek from the bridge at Elgin and Ontario Streets in Cobourg.

An area is fenced off so the trout aren’t able to go back downstream and then they are netted and placed in a holding tank.

Depending on the size, two or three trout are placed in a basked and hoisted over the dam and then released.

Jubenville-Clarke said the fish then make their way up the creek to Baltimore which takes approximately three days. They spawn then head back down river and back into Lake Ontario.

“The purpose is once they (trout) get up there and spawn it gives the little ones a chance to grow and be mature and then come back down to Lake Ontario so they are not small enough to be bait for other fish.”

Jubenville-Clarke has been participating in the lift since she was 10-years-old when her father, Jim, taught her.

With her father passing away in February, 2023, Jubenville-Clarke has taken charge with the help of other volunteers who have also been helping for decades to keep the annual event going.

“We’re seeing younger people participate more and giving them the chance to over this tradition to them to carry on for another 60-years.”

People also come out to watch for the banks of the creek as the lift is carried out.

The lift was delayed a week due to weather last Saturday, but 200 Rainbow trout were lifted over the dam with 100 male and 100 females.