Anglers like to debate topics that don't have easy answers. Like what fish is the toughest fighting? The most glamorous? The hardest to catch? The best eating? Plenty of candidates are found in every category.

But when the question is asked, what fish is the most rare and most beautiful, the list of contenders quickly dwindles. That is when the aurora trout--like the Aurora Borealis rippling across the northern night sky--rises to the top of almost everyone's list.

Auroras were found originally only in Whirligig and Little Whitepine, two small lakes in northeastern Ontario, near the renowned lake trout fishery of Lake Temagami. When biologists examined the trout in the early 1900s, they concluded that they were looking at a new and distinct species of fish. They dubbed the trout Salvelinus timagamiensis in recognition of its individuality and the gnarled white pine and granite trout-filled region it called home.

Fifty years later, subsequent scientific scrutiny suggested that the original verdict was rendered too hastily. The aurora trout, these biologists suggested, was too similar to the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) to be classified as distinct. They advocated that it's a color variant of the brookie, and therefore a subspecies, which they called Salvelinus fontinalis temagamiensis.

While the aurora's ancestry may be a topic for debate, no one disputes the fact that the fish is rare, beautiful, and threatened with extinction as a result of acid rain.

If you're lucky enough to catch an aurora trout, or catch a glimpse of one in the wild, you will see immediately why the fishery folk had so much difficulty classifying it. Stunning as it is, it looks like a speckled trout, only without the spots along its flanks and the blue halos that ring the red dots.

The same crisp, olive-green back with black, wavy, wormlike vermiculations appear. The telltale leading edge of the anal, pelvic, and pectoral fins are as white as new fallen snow, contrasting with gleaming black borders. And in fall, when water temperatures chill and male auroras search out shallow, gravely springs and upwellings along shore on which to spawn, their bellies turn as brilliant orange and red as an autumn sunset.

Like the ubiquitous speckled beauties we find in lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, and ponds from the northeastern half of Canada down through the Great Lake's states and the Appalachians, as far south as Georgia, the Aurora trout not only looks like its brook trout brethren, but behaves similar as well.

A 10- to 12-inch female aurora trout lays as few as 200 eggs, while a three- or four-pound fish may deposit as many as 5,000 or more eggs. Still, that's not many for so glorious and fragile a creature.

Like the brook trout, the aurora also is a bit of a knucklehead. Akin to the popular high school cheerleader--handsome and personable but not necessarily the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Unlike the wily brown or even the rainbow, the aurora trout is rarely selective in its feeding habits. If something moves and looks the least bit edible, an aurora likely will try to wrap its lips around it. In this respect, the aurora and the brook trout are the bigmouths of the trout clan.

In their respected Freshwater Fishes of Canada, Scott and Crossman report that, "In a very thorough study of brook trout in Ontario, Ricker provided a review of the organisms eaten. The list of organisms is astonishing and suggest brook trout will eat any living creature its mouth can accommodate: worms, leeches, crustaceans, aquatic insects (over 80 genera eaten), terrestrial insects (over 30 families), spiders, mollusks, a number of fish species (including young speckled trout), frogs, salamanders, and a snake."

Coupled with their nonselective taste buds, aurora trout have appetites like hyperactive teenagers. When water temperatures are in the optimal range (55 degrees to 58 degrees) for growth, the fish will eat half their body weight in minnows each week. That means a chunky two-pound aurora will chow down a pound of minnows in seven or fewer days. Little wonder that the biggest aurora trout caught in Ontario weighed 6.75-pounds and was brought to the net, not by some Barishnikov waving a fly-rod, but by a 10 year-old angler dragging a spinner rig and worm during the middle of summer. The trout was 20.25-inches long with a 13.5-inch girth. Young Kyle Maki caught his spotless trophy on August 1, 1997 in the Nayowin River, about 100 miles southwest of Kirkland Lake.

Aurora trout share another trait, albeit an unfortunate one, with brook trout. They have incredibly short life spans. A 5-year-old aurora trout is a grand daddy. A 6-, 7-, or 8-year old fish is a Methuselah.

When you think about it, big, beautiful, fast growing, short lived, aggressive, ever hungry, easy to catch, and easier to please are hardly conditions conducive to fish population explosions. Factor in where the auroras live--downwind of the giant International Nickel and Falconbridge Nickel smelters in Sudbury, Ontario, and it spells double trouble for the trout.

By the early 1960s, so much acid had spewed out of the smoke stacks and rained down on Whirligig and Little Whitepine lakes as well as on 20,000 other bodies of water in the area that they were turned into fishless chemical graveyards. Only a last-ditched, heroic captive-breeding program saved the aurora trout from extinction. They were declared an endangered species in 1987.

But the news isn't all bad.

Ontario Natural Resources staff carefully fertilized the eggs from nine wild aurora trout, and nurtured the offspring. Today they maintain a successful brood stock production program at the Hills Lake Hatchery in Earlton, Ontario. Also, an aurora trout refuge in Alexander, Southeast Campcot, and Northeast Campcot lakes in the event of a disaster at the hatchery.

Some good news also has come from the home front. Whirligig and Little Whitepine are the two picture-postcard kettle lakes now lie within the Lady-Evelyn Smoothwater Wilderness Provincial Park. In 1989, Ontario Natural Resources biologists and fisheries scientists at Laurentian University in Sudbury spearheaded a "whole-lake liming" recovery project. Using helicopters to ferry in massive amounts of crushed and powdered limestone, they attempted to change the water chemistry of the lakes, neutralize and reverse the effects of acid rain, and reestablish naturally reproducing populations of aurora trout.

Their efforts appear to have paid off. In 1990, the pH in the lakes had risen to 6.5, well above the threshold pH of 5 required for successful natural reproduction of aurora trout. The alkalinity levels in the lakes also were favorably adjusted. It was time to give the fish a second lease on life. A thousand aurora trout of different age classes were planted into Whirligig Lake in spring 1990. By fall, the fish had prospered. Some weighed as much as three pounds. The biomass of auroras (essentially the total weight of trout) in Whirligig Lake was almost 16 pounds per acre, a level comparable to that of a healthy brook trout population in a natural setting. But the best news was received in fall. The trout were spawning successfully.

Tons of additional crushed lime was subsequently spread across a wetland that drains into Whirligig Lake and extra powdered calcite was poured over the transom of boats directly into the prop wash to neutralize the acidic effect when levels started creeping back up.

Fisheries personnel are cautiously optimistic. Stricter (though some say not strict enough) standards were imposed on the Sudbury smelters in 1994, mandating a 40 percent reduction in emissions. The aurora trout planted in 1990 now have died of old age, but multiple year classes indicate that the trout are spawning successfully, and each year the percentage of wild aurora trout in Whirligig increases over the percentage of trout planted.

According to Chuck McCrudden, one of the biologists associated with the recovery project: "The progeny are doing fine. I think we are on our third generation of naturally reproduced fish in Whirligig Lake, and evidence suggests that the young aurora trout in Whitepine Lake are not only downstream migrants but more likely progeny of the adult stockings as well."

Though fishing in Whirligig, Little Whitepine, and the other refuge lakes remains closed, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has developed a unique trophy aurora trout-fishing program. Nine natural lakes in Fisheries Division 19 of Northeastern Ontario are now stocked with aurora trout, and on a rotational basis, three lakes each year are open to angling. The aurora trout season runs from August 1 to October 15, and the daily catch and possession limit is one fish. Live fish may not be used as bait.

INCO and Falconbridge Nickel, either out of embarrassment or a sense of corporate responsibility, also appear to be stepping up to the plate. The companies are now considering funding various projects to restore many other coldwater trout lakes they originally damaged. Also in its infancy is the Ontario Living Legacy Trust Fund project that would affect over 1,000 trout lakes in Northeastern Ontario. Although we came dreadfully close to losing aurora trout for all time, anglers everywhere have their fingers crossed that the golden age of the aurora trout may be just around the corner.