To learn more about the degree of individual variation in resource use by lake trout Salvelinus namaycush, ultrasonic telemetry was used to study their habitat use in a lake without pelagic schooling fish prey. Individuals spent most of their time within the metalimnion in favourable water temperatures. They also made frequent excursions, however, into lake temperatures exceeding their optimum for physiological performance at all temporal scales considered. Their frequent use of nearshore habitats suggested that feeding in littoral areas may be common. Habitat use was highly variable among individuals, but spatial habitat use by individuals showed remarkable consistency between years. In particular, some lake trout exhibited high site fidelity to shallow, nearshore areas, whereas others used deep areas extensively. This level of between-individual variation indicated niche partitioning by depth and the possibility of alternative foraging strategies.

There are ~250,000 lakes in Ontario that support important cultural, recreational, and economic fisheries. In 2005, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry adopted the Ecological Framework for Recreational Fisheries Management to tackle the heterogeneity of lake resources and angler mobility across the landscape, increase public participation in fisheries management, and streamline an ever‐growing list of regulations. The Broad‐Scale Monitoring Program for Inland Lakes began in 2008 to meet these goals. Essential elements of the program are: clear objectives, standardized sampling methods, operational implementation, diagnostic indicators, standardized reporting, a multidisciplinary team, and adaptive monitoring. Fishes, zooplankton, habitat, and angling activity are measured at each lake and provide the data needed to make evidence‐based fisheries management decisions. The data have benefited other provincial initiatives and provided significant contributions to the science of freshwater ecology. Recommendations are provided for other jurisdictions considering the implementation of a standardized broad‐scale monitoring program.

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Determining appropriate spatial scales for managing fisheries is a key element of sustainable management. For inland fisheries, management or harvest regulations are often implemented as general regional guidelines or on a lake‐by‐lake basis. Wild lacustrine brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis from four waterbodies in the Galipo River watershed of Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, were used as a model system to determine the extent of population structure among lakes and to identify appropriate scale(s) for managing inland brook trout fisheries. Individual multilocus genotypes were measured using 10 microsatellite loci and were used to characterize movement and gene flow among lakes. Both population‐ and individual‐based analyses showed very little genetic structure among all pairs of waterbodies, suggesting high levels of movement and gene flow between all pairs of lakes. Varying levels of limited genetic structure between pairs of lakes indicate that gene flow may not be uniform within the study system. These results suggest that contrary to previous studies, local watersheds may be the most appropriate management scale for lacustrine brook trout populations in watersheds where physical characteristics provide the potential for migration and gene flow.