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Kushiro Shitsugen NP, Hokkaido
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A fisheries history recounts a former Toro co-op chief’s story of a 2.1 m sturgeon caught in Lake Toro in 1936—a startling fish to imagine beneath today’s ice-fishing tents.
Lake Toro holds both wakasagi and look-alike Ishikari wakasagi. In a 1966 sample of 147 fish, researchers identified 49 as Ishikari wakasagi—about 1 in 3.
After the ice-fishing season ends around March 10, fishers catch ripe smelt beneath the ice in early April and collect their eggs for the hatchery. Commercial wakasagi fishing follows in September–November.
Until about 1990, Toro Kotan’s Ainu community held a September Pekanpe Kamuy-nomi at Lake Toro, giving thanks and praying for a safe water-chestnut harvest. Gatherers flipped leaves from boats to collect the spiny seeds.
Before refrigeration, local families turned autumn wakasagi into sushi for winter protein; they also salted or rice-bran-pickled them, sometimes drying the smallest fish first. At Toro, smelt were pantry food, not just a crispy snack.
A local fishery leader recalled that Lake Toro once drew hundreds of day-trippers a day. Special trains came from Kushiro, and visiting groups hauled a seine on the lake before finishing their outing with a barbecue.
Hokkaido’s fisheries office credits Lake Toro’s plentiful plankton with giving its wakasagi a rich, fatty flavor. The soft little fish can be eaten whole, from tempura and karaage to tsukudani and teriyaki.
In a 2013 account, the co-op leader described heavy snow followed by rain forming insulating slush on the ice. It stayed frozen past the smelt spawn, so fishers couldn’t collect broodfish and had to rely on natural reproduction that year.
A 2013 fishery interview counted about 30 co-op members but only 3 commercial smelt fishers. The co-op leader said the small fishing crew helped avoid taking too many, while other members helped process the catch.
Lake Toro’s smelt industry reached Honshu surprisingly early: artificial hatching and stocking began in 1931, and by 1932 local wakasagi tsukudani was being sold on Japan’s main island.
A February 2026 park field note recorded a white-tailed eagle flying close to anglers’ tents on Lake Toro—an unexpected neighbor for people fishing through the ice.
