There is little doubt that Blackstone Lake gained an early reputation for the quantity and size of its muskellunge. Due to its size and the fierceness of its fight, sportsmen from many far flung regions have sought the muskie out. The fact that Blackstone was a rather short portage from Lake Joseph and the other Muskoka Lakes and that, despite their size, had reported no muskellunge, it was natural to expect Blackstone and Crane would become special fishing havens.
Why Blackstone and Crane?
Why Blackstone became to be so blessed with this trophy fish is not clear. A cold water fish, the muskellunge requires an oligotrophic lake that is well oxygenated below its thermocline. This translates to a body of water with low bio-activity so that the…show more content… The much larger Muskoka Lakes, that seemed not to have had a natural population of this large fish, are harder to explain. These lakes are also oligotrophic lakes with deep waters, although not as strongly so as Blackstone. The recently introduced muskellunge in the Muskoka Lakes show that they can survive there however. As the stories of the earliest fishermen on Blackstone, Crane, Joseph and many of the surrounding lakes show, it is Blackstone and Crane that have the muskies — and in quantity, with none mention in Lakes Joseph, Rosseau or…show more content… However, after more of the glacier melted, the land rebounded from the weight of ice and the great lake began to drain in different routes. As the drainage changed from going down the Ottawa Valley to being emptied via St. Clair Lake a new conglomeration of lakes, the Nipissing Great Lakes formed. The extent of this proglacial lake had part of its boundary along what is now the old Hwy 69. Some indication of its limit is by the sand pit near the CPR railway in and the Blackstone-Crane road intersection being a fragment of the old Nipissing beach. This beach line implies that the muskellunge would not have made it, at least extensively to the Muskoka Lakes from Georgian Bay or Blackstone. If this period of time, around 3,200 years ago, was when the muskie established its population, then it would have naturally been in Blackstone and would have had trouble getting to Lakes Joseph, Rosseau or Muskoka. The many falls in the rivers that drain the Muskoka Lakes precludes any muskellunge from getting from Georgian Bay to them. Hence, it is possible that muskellunge were in Blackstone and Crane from nearly the beginning and not in the other surrounding
