This trip was definately different than years past, with the slowest fishing I have ever seen, and an extremely low number of fish tagged this spring. overall The steelehead populations in the Black Bay tributaries seem to have been declining over recent years, and Portage creek is no different. In its prime, it wasn't uncommon to sample dozens of steelhead in a day, sometimes 40+ fish. This trip, we tagged two steelhead and a brook trout.
There are suspicions that the recovering perch and walleye populations in Black Bay are related to the decline in the steelhead population, as the timelines are definately related. It will be interesting to see how things go in Portage, and the rest of the Black Bay tributaries, and hopefully the steelhead recover.
http://www.northshoresteelhead.com/project3.htm