Calling Lake

[lund17]

I fish Calling Lake pretty much every weekend. I have never had been skunked out there for the last few years until the last two weekends. Anyone else finding it slow out on the water? I have tried everything and various depths with no luck. I got some family coming up this weekend and everyone is looking to catch some fish but I dont know what to try. Any one got some info?

[Princecraft164]

Is there still a blue-green algea problem?? I know Alberta Health Services had an advisory up on their website

[Drewski Canuck]

No problems on Saturday in front of the town site mid day. Try towing Canadian Wiggler in yellow five or diamonds or chartreause from 12 - 25 FOW. About 20 - 25 mixed pike and walleye in a couple of hours. 3 keepers.

Drewski

[Kurt505]

I always troll a copper and orange rappela and I've never been skunked. If they're not biting by the boat launch try way at the north end by the church on the reserve. There is a 16' hole there that I pick them up from every time.

[salmon slayer]

we just spent 9 days up there, there is algae floating on the lake in spots, the fishing was quite good for august, a blue wally diver worked well on both walleye and pike, from the new boat launch on the northwest end to the water treatment plant in 12-18' of water was really good, 68cm walleye and a 83cm pike were the 2 biggest, from 5pm to 8pm seemed the best time to fish

[gallery]

Went this weekend and we caught our limit. Never have been skunked either but is it just me or is there no meat on these fish? 4 fish and hardly a feed. We caught lots over the 55 and all head

[highwood]

Went this weekend and we caught our limit. Never have been skunked either but is it just me or is there no meat on these fish? 4 fish and hardly a feed. We caught lots over the 55 and all head

You are very correct, the declining quality in Calling is noticeable especially this year. Feed seems to be at a premium now and the both the walleye and pike are thinning out. Perhaps Drewski Canuck can comment on what his opinion on the state of Calling is, he is there quite a bit.

[gallery]

I am wondering too if these fish are not getting enough feed are we going to see a huge winter kill? I don't thimk I will be going back this year makes me feel kind on guilty taking walleye home, might just fish la biche. When you catch a jack there you can feed a whole family!!

[highwood]

The best thing you can do is remove walleye from the lake. Take your limit, everytime. It's obvious that forage is an issue, and Calling is quickly turning into Pigeon Lake north.

[Drewski Canuck]

Story is that the genetics for big fish are getting knocked out by taking all the big fish. I understand that the idea was to get the big fish through a few spawning cycles for recruitment. There was heavy recruitment on the 45 - 55 cm fish, so idea was to thin them out. Reality is you catch more over than under, and there are LOTS over. However, the bigger forage is getting cleaned out. No perch, and fewer tulibee. I caught a legal a couple weekends ago that spit up an 8 inch ling. this was a 50 cm fish, so obviously, even the ling are getting thinned out. Perhaps in July the regs could do adjusted to one in 45 - 55, and one 60 - 65 cm, so that some of the largeer fish get thinned out, and the really big walleye are protected for a while longer.

you are right that the fish are looking thin. This has happened at Slave as well as Pigeon. With a little luck the test nets will better reflect the size structure and weight, as I understand that test netting is every two years at Calling. This may be enough to bring about a change.

Drewski
Drewski

[0liver]

they are getting stunted just like pidgeon. pidgeons problem is your not allowed to keep fish without tags, and the tags are few and far between. if you simply harvested some of the mature fish from pidgeon and also calling then there would be more room and there would be a population as well as size explosion. I remember years before when you were able to harvest from pidgeon publicly you used to catch walleyes the size of your leg and as big around as a fire hydrant right after they started adding all the red tape it just made a huge amount of stunted skeletons and now there is just too many snake-like former lunkers that will stay in the lake for the rest of there extended regulation-protected lives and be repeatedly caught instead of being harvested and making room for the next generation....:(

sure, a couple years back when there was a 0 bag limit you used to catch 75+ fish in a evening but they were all bloody skeletons! and now with the algea combined with the tiny fish you just don't catch much of anything...let alone some pathetic stunted minnow and im afraid calling will end up the same way with the way things are going!:angry3:

I remember reading something from a biologist i can't place a name to, dunno if its 100% fool proof but according to him and my own belief a lake can only support x amount of fish and when there is too many fish then there will just be small, stunted fish as well as an overall decline in the quality of the lake. I think there should be some major studies into alberta lakes and we should fix this before its irreversible!

[highwood]

Thanks Drewski, thats pretty well what I figured. Its definitely a different lake than it was 6 years ago.

[buckmasterjr]

It was pretty slow on saturday. Only 4 keepers between 5 people. The rest were either to big, to skinny, or to small.

[hilltops]

Has the Blue Algae Health Advisory ever been taken off Calling Lake? My research says its still on. Was hoping to go to Calling Lake this week end.

[haywarje]

The local radio station here in Athabasca said the algae advisory is still on. That was this morning when i heard that. Now that being said, My brother and i took 3 walleye and a pike out of there Sunday evening. The lake was as clear as i've ever seen it. The south wind that day must have pushed the algae north. You could see your fish 10 feet down! Do we really have to trash our catch? And yes we caught about a dozen 60-70cm walleye that were all head. Very ugly fish!

[RavYak]

Wouldn't worry about eating the fish unless you plan on feasting on them for days straight. The odd meal will be fine, just take care to remove the liver and kidney in full and try not to cut into the guts when filleting. Clean the fillets thoroughly and everything should be fine as they haven't proven that the flesh takes on any of the toxins(although they have proven the guts and in particular liver does).

[BeeGuy]

A couple thoughts:

It is not a matter of how many fish a lake can support, but a matter of the total biomass. Lots of little fish is the same as few big fish.

No doubt the heavy algae has many effects on the lakes health. I would not be surprised if the increased metabolic demand of toxin removal by the fish is causing them to lose weight. The same way smoking cigarettes can keep you skinny-er.

my 2c

[FishinChick]

Just spent 3 days on the lake and the walleye fishing was incredible. 4 people fishing and it wasn't uncommon to all have a fish-on at the same time.

Algae alert was on but that didn't seem to turn away anyone from eating these fish. Spoke with F&G if anyone had reported any reactions from coming in contact with the water/eating the fish and she reported only a couple of kids had developed rashes after spending several hours playing in the water.

Conservation is currently doing a survey of all boaters coming off the late, specifically hours spent fishing, numbers/types caught, numbers over/under the slot and they are weighing, measuring, sexing the fish right at the boat dock.

We only ran across a couple of snaky looking 70+, the ones in the slot were all a decent 3 lbs. :)

[Dust1n]

awsome

3 girl friends of mine were at the lake on the weekend and went fishn and caught one small one. they also went swimming should i warn them about this? or is it toixc?