Sask. farmer shocked to find fish swimming in flooded field

Jack fish stranded in flooded fields Jack fish from the Quill Lakes were stranded in a flooded field this year. Cole Davenport explains.

Three generations of Saskatchewan farmers said they never expected to find fish in their pastures.

But earlier this week a farmer near Wadena, Sask. looked out in his field and found what he thinks are spawning jackfish.

“I was kind of shocked. I wasn’t expecting to see fish out with the cows that day,” Lyndon Haskey, a farmer about 140 kilometers northwest of Yorkton, told CTV News.

“I was out checking cows in the morning on the quad, and I went to one of the lower areas so I could cross the ravine. All of a sudden all these fish were there.”

Haskey believes the fish came from the Quill Lakes and arrived on his farm after the spring thaw, which caused flooding in areas near the lake.

Other people in the area say they also witnessed northern pike in their flooded pastures and ditches.

Reg Glennie has lived in the Quill Lake area for about 40 years and has never seen jackfish come out of the lake, until this year.

Many of the residents joke that if the flooding doesn’t dry up, they’ll start fishing.

“We’ll just be out here in the pasture fishing,” Haskey said.

— based on a report by Cole Davenport