Man catches 'unheard of' fish in Toronto harbour

Will Sampson and his friend were out fishing for a full day in Toronto Harbor on Sunday when they ran into something unexpected.

“We were just running. I got a couple of (pikes) right off the bat, and as we were jumping, when that fish hit, I could tell by the weight and the way it hit, it was a good fish,” Sampson told CTV. Toronto News.

“I thought it was a big pike, obviously.”

When Sampson was fishing, he initially thought it had something to do with how much he weighed. Then he noticed what color it was.

“When I saw it was a musky, my knees immediately turned to jelly. “They just seem to be woven together,” he said.

Muskie, officially known as muskellunge, is a type of fish that belongs to the northern pike and is usually light silver, green or brown with stripes. Northern pike are dark with pale markings.

Will Sampson with a muskie before releasing it into Toronto Harbor. (supplied)

Sampson estimates the fish was 43-and-a-half inches and weighed less than 20 pounds, but he says he didn't have the equipment to safely weigh the fish. While that's a decent size, he notes that muskies can reach up to the 50-inch range.

“We knew it was a unicorn, like there are muskies in Lake Ontario, (but) it's totally unheard of in Toronto Harbor,” Sampson said, later adding that bowfish and walleye are commonly found in those waters.

Sampson, a sport fish guide who says he's been fishing his whole life, told CTV Toronto he's caught muskies before, but this is his first time in the area.

He couldn't figure out why there were muskies in Toronto Harbor, but noted that they were plentiful at the mouth of the Niagara River and on the other side of Lake Ontario, near Kingston.

According to the City of Toronto, muskies thrived in the waters surrounding the Toronto Islands about 200 years ago.

“After the arrival of Europeans, many changes resulted in the destruction or degradation of fish habitat,” says the city's Fishes of Toronto guide.

“A total of 15 exotic fish species have been introduced intentionally for food and recreation or captured through navigation channels or ocean liner ballast. Today, the population of most of the local fish has decreased dramatically, and 10 species have completely disappeared.”