Explore Ontario’s trout and salmon rivers: the stretches where brook, brown and rainbow trout or salmon are on record, from Lake Huron and Lake Ontario tributaries such as the Saugeen, Credit and Ganaraska to the brook trout rivers of the north, plus the lakes and ponds MNRF stocks, with Crown land, parks and conservation areas.
Check before you fish. Access, stocking and regulations here come from Ontario's own data and can be out of date. Posted signs and landowners' wishes come first, and private land needs permission. The rules that apply are in the Ontario Fishing Regulations Summary, and you need a valid fishing license.
Bold where the stream crosses public land; faint and dashed across private land. Gauges are measurement stations; a nearby gauge may be on a different stream.
Stream types · Ontario
Bold where the stream crosses public land
Lines are the stretches of named rivers and streams where Ontario’s Aquatic Resource Area records list brook, brown or rainbow trout or a salmon. Wide rivers mapped as polygons are drawn along the Ontario Hydro Network centreline. Records come from surveys, some of them decades old, and show that a species was found, not how many fish there are. Stretches nobody surveyed aren’t drawn, and unnamed streams (most of the north’s small brook trout water) are left out, so this is a partial inventory.
Each river is one entry per MNRF waterbody, with the species recorded, its thermal regime (cold, cool or warm water) and its Fisheries Management Zone. Seasons, limits and exceptions are set by zone in the Ontario Fishing Regulations Summary: check the zone and the water’s exceptions before you fish. Rainbow trout includes Great Lakes steelhead.
Stocked lakes and ponds are the waters MNRF stocked with trout, splake or salmon this year or last, at the stocking point MNRF publishes. Stocking on a mapped river is listed with that river. Stocking by clubs and conservation authorities isn’t included.
Public land is provincial parks, conservation reserves and unpatented Crown land, plus conservation-authority Conservation Areas, municipal natural areas and national parks from the federal protected-areas database. Fishing from private land needs the owner’s permission. Conservation areas can charge for entry, close seasonally or limit where you can fish; check the site’s rules.
Highlighted banks adjoin mapped open-access public land, with a roughly 20-meter bank tolerance. Dimmed water has no adjacent open-access parcel recorded in this source. Neither determines legal entry, rights of way or permission to cross private land. Check signs, property rules and the current fishing regulations.
Access markers are source facility locations within about 800 meters of mapped water, not verified parking spaces or guaranteed entry to a particular reach. River-gauge readings describe the gauged location; a nearby gauge on another stream is shown as context.