Alberta Fishing Regulations! Good or bad?!?

[Lethalconnection]

I know im opening a jumbo sized can of worms here but seems its becoming quite the issue here on the board so maybe its time we hash it out on a thread about it and not hijack other threads.


I honestly think they are crap.

First off bull trout. Lets not allow anyone to keep bull trout...sure i realize they were a species that was in serious danger due to over harvesting. But i see a HUGE increase in numbers in some rivers/streams and am catching them more often then any other trout species. Sure some places still need a 0 limit on them but i do believe that alot of rivers/streams need a SLOT limit. Not a keep 3 over 50cm crap. A pre determined size that wont affect the smaller fish or the spawning fish, and dont have some stupid limit size of 5 or 10, keep it to a simple 1 or two, or just have as we have for some walleye lakes and have tags for them. Cause right now between people being able to keep all the other species of trout out of these rivers/streams, and the bigger more aggressive bull trout eat the smaller species, the numbers of these other species of trout are gunna become in danger just as the bulls were then it will happen all over again with a different species of trout.

Second off size limits. I think the size limits are ridiculous. Sure go ahead and keep the spawning fish that play more then just the role of spawning and producing the next generation of fish. They also play a huge role in helping other species of fish in the lake become stunted in size. Also keep numbers in check. A HUGE screw up involving keeping the big spawning pike is Pigeon Lake. They allowed the population of walleye get crazy high while still allowing people to keep the big pike which keep the numbers and sizes of the walleye in check. Pike like to eat things that are 1/3 their body size and most of the walleye in pigeon are stunted at under 50cm which weigh about 3lbs so therefore 9lb pike and up (which are over 63cm) are the ones that will be keeping the numbers in check therefore preventing the stunting of the walleye, but since all the pike that would be keeping the walleye in check are kept the pike are becoming stunted as well to under 63cm, so the lake is a mess because they are allowing people to keep the bigger spawning fish that will be eating the average size walleye in that lake. Now by allowing people to continue keep pike over 63cm and no walleye in other lakes eventually it will happen to all lakes but the alberta fisheries are too blind to see this. Once again thats why you see more and more of us not telling or showing others where we are catching these big pike, so that they dont become over fished and targeted for the big pike, which will lead to them being kept.

Third limit numbers. Now some lakes have adapted such as Sylvan, Gull and Pigeon but i think still might need to be changed in the near future due to the increase of fishing pressure. But what i find foolish are some of the lake down south. For example Perch 15; Whitefish 10; Burbot 10. Ok first off i rarely hear anyone catching their limit of those fish out of those lakes and if they do catch one they will more then likely keep it. So lets recap, really hard to catch your limit due to lack of numbers already but you can pretty much keep as many as you will ice in a day because it still wont equal your limit. So now these fish have to compete with their already low numbers, fishermen, and the predator fish eating them as well. So in turn lots of these lakes are gunna be over run with predator fish just as Pigeon has.

So here is what i think Alberta Sustainable Resources and Alberta F&W has to do:
Slot limits on certain species such as walleye, pike, bull trout. Now i do think that a person should be able to keep maybe one or two lunkers a year therefore you are issued(or draw) a tag for one or two big fish a year(such as manitoba and their musky). Do not allow spawning fish to be kept sure the lakes maybe become stunted in size again because no big fish are allowed to be kept but i think its pretty healthy if the fish are stunted to spawning size or bigger.
Limits need to be re-done and actually had some research put forth to the set amount of limit a day not some number they randomly select out of a hat.
All in all make the limits/sizes work out for all species so one species wont benefit from the regs and the others will suffer.

[TundraBuck]

Lethalconnection I agree with you 150% man. We need to bring this to Morton's attention. We need to rid of the province-wide regulations and start setting them per individual waters. Especially the pike, that's the big one. Slot of 50 - 65 cm is ideal.

[duffy4]

"So here is what i think Alberta Conservation has to do"

Who is Alberta Conservation?

Robin

[Lethalconnection]

Sorry ill re-word it. Alberta Sustainable Resources and Alberta F&W

[packhuntr]

I hear ya, on some points, FOR SURE. I think slotting and removing a huge # of these small pike from afew of the stunted lakes, while putting a strict closure on the larger ones would in time have afew of these fisheries looking after themselves again, no doubt.
Managing for one species has got to stop. I talked with a SRD officer afew years back on this one{Crawling to be exact} and was told that most anglers want walleye, and that is a target species, and that is what should be managed for. He could not explain how this would affect the biodiversity of that particular lake though....Hmmmm. A little too from the hip for me, but im no expert, that i will say.
They also need to make the commercial fishing gig go away, and sooner than later. Mabey lake whitefish can handle the harvest cause they are very prolific, but there is no doubt about the damage caused over the years to the predatory species. None of the lakes in this province produce fish like they used to, and i suspect thay never will, but ya, i agree, there should be some changes implemented pretty quick.....Or we are gonna have a province full of stunted pike fisheries.
Im no biologist though...It would be awesome to hear from someone with a background in this, and take a run at afew questions a guy might have.

keep a strain on er.

[TundraBuck]

I hear ya, on some points, FOR SURE. I think slotting and removing a huge # of these small pike from afew of the stunted lakes, while putting a strict closure on the larger ones would in time have afew of these fisheries looking after themselves again, no doubt.
Managing for one species has got to stop. I talked with a SRD officer afew years back on this one{Crawling to be exact} and was told that most anglers want walleye, and that is a target species, and that is what should be managed for. He could not explain how this would affect the biodiversity of that particular lake though....Hmmmm. A little too from the hip for me, but im no expert, that i will say.
They also need to make the commercial fishing gig go away, and sooner than later. Mabey lake whitefish can handle the harvest cause they are very prolific, but there is no doubt about the damage caused over the years to the predatory species. None of the lakes in this province produce fish like they used to, and i suspect thay never will, but ya, i agree, there should be some changes implemented pretty quick.....Or we are gonna have a province full of stunted pike fisheries.
Im no biologist though...It would be awesome to hear from someone with a background in this, and take a run at afew questions a guy might have.

keep a strain on er.

No kiddin hey packhuntr. I have a bit of a background in Biology I have a BSc. In Environmental Sciences but i never did pursue a career in that field. But I wouldn't be the one to talk to. I just think this province-wide stuff has got to stop and we need to individually regulate the fisheries.

[Gordoats26]

I know im opening a jumbo sized can of worms here but seems its becoming quite the issue here on the board so maybe its time we hash it out on a thread about it and not hijack other threads.


I honestly think they are crap.

First off bull trout. Lets not allow anyone to keep bull trout...sure i realize they were a species that was in serious danger due to over harvesting. But i see a HUGE increase in numbers in some rivers/streams and am catching them more often then any other trout species. Sure some places still need a 0 limit on them but i do believe that alot of rivers/streams need a SLOT limit. Not a keep 3 over 50cm crap. A pre determined size that wont affect the smaller fish or the spawning fish, and dont have some stupid limit size of 5 or 10, keep it to a simple 1 or two, or just have as we have for some walleye lakes and have tags for them. Cause right now between people being able to keep all the other species of trout out of these rivers/streams, and the bigger more aggressive bull trout eat the smaller species, the numbers of these other species of trout are gunna become in danger just as the bulls were then it will happen all over again with a different species of trout.

Second off size limits. I think the size limits are ridiculous. Sure go ahead and keep the spawning fish that play more then just the role of spawning and producing the next generation of fish. They also play a huge role in helping other species of fish in the lake become stunted in size. Also keep numbers in check. A HUGE screw up involving keeping the big spawning pike is Pigeon Lake. They allowed the population of walleye get crazy high while still allowing people to keep the big pike which keep the numbers and sizes of the walleye in check. Pike like to eat things that are 1/3 their body size and most of the walleye in pigeon are stunted at under 50cm which weigh about 3lbs so therefore 9lb pike and up (which are over 63cm) are the ones that will be keeping the numbers in check therefore preventing the stunting of the walleye, but since all the pike that would be keeping the walleye in check are kept the pike are becoming stunted as well to under 63cm, so the lake is a mess because they are allowing people to keep the bigger spawning fish that will be eating the average size walleye in that lake. Now by allowing people to continue keep pike over 63cm and no walleye in other lakes eventually it will happen to all lakes but the alberta fisheries are too blind to see this. Once again thats why you see more and more of us not telling or showing others where we are catching these big pike, so that they dont become over fished and targeted for the big pike, which will lead to them being kept.

Third limit numbers. Now some lakes have adapted such as Sylvan, Gull and Pigeon but i think still might need to be changed in the near future due to the increase of fishing pressure. But what i find foolish are some of the lake down south. For example Perch 15; Whitefish 10; Burbot 10. Ok first off i rarely hear anyone catching their limit of those fish out of those lakes and if they do catch one they will more then likely keep it. So lets recap, really hard to catch your limit due to lack of numbers already but you can pretty much keep as many as you will ice in a day because it still wont equal your limit. So now these fish have to compete with their already low numbers, fishermen, and the predator fish eating them as well. So in turn lots of these lakes are gunna be over run with predator fish just as Pigeon has.

So here is what i think Alberta Sustainable Resources and Alberta F&W has to do:
Slot limits on certain species such as walleye, pike, bull trout. Now i do think that a person should be able to keep maybe one or two lunkers a year therefore you are issued(or draw) a tag for one or two big fish a year(such as manitoba and their musky). Do not allow spawning fish to be kept sure the lakes maybe become stunted in size again because no big fish are allowed to be kept but i think its pretty healthy if the fish are stunted to spawning size or bigger.
Limits need to be re-done and actually had some research put forth to the set amount of limit a day not some number they randomly select out of a hat.
All in all make the limits/sizes work out for all species so one species wont benefit from the regs and the others will suffer.

I agree with this as well but maybe to make it even easier rather than the draw system which would probably work as well. what if you did somting like you can for example with walleye keep 2 under 43 cm and 1 over say 86 i mean your not going to catch one of these fish every day or even every season in certain lakes and it would help keep everything in check. i dont know just an idea all i know is somthing has to be done or the fishing in this province is going to go to sh#t in a hurry an we wont have to worry about teaching our kids to fish cause the only fising will be in stocked waters. I just dont see how we are the richest province in canada were known as outdoor people and still it seems like the fisheries dont get any of the funds. at least thats there excuse anyhow..... But it seems like im poking a dead dog with this every year the regs come out i hope for big changes an i just dont see it happening maybe they know somthing i dont?

[TundraBuck]

I agree with this as well but maybe to make it even easier rather than the draw system which would probably work as well. what if you did somting like you can for example with walleye keep 2 under 43 cm and 1 over say 86 i mean your not going to catch one of these fish every day or even every season in certain lakes and it would help keep everything in check. i dont know just an idea all i know is somthing has to be done or the fishing in this province is going to go to sh#t in a hurry an we wont have to worry about teaching our kids to fish cause the only fising will be in stocked waters. I just dont see how we are the richest province in canada were known as outdoor people and still it seems like the fisheries dont get any of the funds. at least thats there excuse anyhow..... But it seems like im poking a dead dog with this every year the regs come out i hope for big changes an i just dont see it happening maybe they know somthing i dont?

I hear ya Gordoats. It's been like this since the late 90's. I agree, we're supposed to be a wealthy province and known for our outdoors stuff. Well sure we have great hunting stuff, but how do you explain the state of our fisheries compared to provinces such as BC, Saskatchewan, or Manitoba? It is ridiculous. I like your idea on the walleye, that sort of makes sense if the odd person kept a huge fish it would help to keep everything in check. It's fine if the very off huge mature fish is harvested but we need a healthy population of them keeping the lakes sustainable. Some of the guys up there really need to get their act together. Now everyone is goona bi**h us out and stuff but I don't care, people who at least give half a sh1t about the fisheries will agree with us. What is it goona take guys?

[Nationwide]

your a real treat tundrabuck:lol: :lol: Lethalconnection some good points you should run for office or at least get a job at Alberta Sustainable Resources .:)

[JohninAB]

My take.

We cannot compare our fisheries to any other province. We have 800 fishable lakes which means the fishing pressure they receive is astronomical to lakes in most other provinces. Check the web and compare fishing days per lake and you will be shocked. Our fisheries biologists face a tough battle and I believe they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. Saskatchewan for instance has 100000 fishable lakes, Ontario has way more.

As for slot limits like the other provinces have, I do not think they would work here because of this intense fishing pressure. If we were to have a slot size for fish, say 2 under 40 cm and 1 over 55cm, with the pressure on our lakes, it would be not very long before fish under 40 cm and fish over 55cm were to the point of being non-existant in the lake. With the severely limited numbers of fish under 40 cm left, the recruitment into the prime breeding size would be nil to non-existent darn near. Therefore as the breeding size fish age and die off, what is left for breeders with what would be low to nil recruitment?

I have fished Ontario and Saskatchewan quite a bit where you may see ten other boats on the lake all day. Now take a trip to say Pigeon or Lesser Slave or Sturgeon lake and you can count that many in at the boat launch. And even in those provinces, you are seeing more catch and release waters and tighter restrictions on what you can keep.

Having said all that, I would like to see a more aggresive walleye stocking program here in Alberta though.

[KyleM]

I couldnt agree more with you guys.

This is a tough subject to make everyone happy on which is why
I think youll see a few ugly remarks made in the next comming days.
Here are the problems that I see and some of the soloutions that seem
a little more reasonable then lobbying the lazy-no-goods for better regs.

Slot sizes and reduced limits:

By knocking down slot limits, your essentially putting a target on a certain year of fish. If this were to happen, you would notice a major decrease of the fishery in say, 5 years. The best way to handle slot limits (this is my opinion, folks) is to have a rotating system like they are talking about doing in Ontario. This takes a fair amount of research and a few years to set up but by doing so, you eliminate the destruction of the one slot size. Determine the slot sizes to be very specific for 2-3 years and then rotate for 2-3 years.

Dont get me wrong, having a single slot size is still 100% better then whats happening at the present time but lets just fix this problem once instead of two, three times.

Now, time for the real problem.

EDUCATION

This situation could have been fixed years ago if people were promoting
true conservation. C&R in Alberta seems to be a rare occurance and it really is quite sad. Ontario has more fresh water lakes then anywhere I know, you can quite honestly fish a different lake every day for your entire life and get your limits in 90% of your outtings. Fish are in abundance yet you still see people releasing trophies and even the smaller ones. It is frowned upon to keep trophies, why? People have been educated and have seen first hand what can happen when everyone fills their boat. I really hope that attitude can be adopted out here because this number of lakes cannot handle the pressure that will be placed on them in the next 10 years.

Its a sad day for the sport when people use the excuse "the fish was legal, the guy dosnt need to throw it back" Shame on you guys for having such an EXTREMELY POOR attitude towards the subject. We as fisherman shouldnt need the government to babysit us. We're on the water the majority of the time, not our government......we as fisherman know what needs to be done, lets not wait for them.

[TundraBuck]

My take.

We cannot compare our fisheries to any other province. We have 800 fishable lakes which means the fishing pressure they receive is astronomical to lakes in most other provinces. Check the web and compare fishing days per lake and you will be shocked. Our fisheries biologists face a tough battle and I believe they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. Saskatchewan for instance has 100000 fishable lakes, Ontario has way more.

As for slot limits like the other provinces have, I do not think they would work here because of this intense fishing pressure. If we were to have a slot size for fish, say 2 under 40 cm and 1 over 55cm, with the pressure on our lakes, it would be not very long before fish under 40 cm and fish over 55cm were to the point of being non-existant in the lake. With the severely limited numbers of fish under 40 cm left, the recruitment into the prime breeding size would be nil to non-existent darn near. Therefore as the breeding size fish age and die off, what is left for breeders with what would be low to nil recruitment?

I have fished Ontario and Saskatchewan quite a bit where you may see ten other boats on the lake all day. Now take a trip to say Pigeon or Lesser Slave or Sturgeon lake and you can count that many in at the boat launch. And even in those provinces, you are seeing more catch and release waters and tighter restrictions on what you can keep.

Having said all that, I would like to see a more aggresive walleye stocking program here in Alberta though.

That doesn't mean we can't work to improve our fisheries and just give up.

[TundraBuck]

I couldnt agree more with you guys.

This is a tough subject to make everyone happy on which is why
I think youll see a few ugly remarks made in the next comming days.
Here are the problems that I see and some of the soloutions that seem
a little more reasonable then lobbying the lazy-no-goods for better regs.

Slot sizes and reduced limits:

By knocking down slot limits, your essentially putting a target on a certain year of fish. If this were to happen, you would notice a major decrease of the fishery in say, 5 years. The best way to handle slot limits (this is my opinion, folks) is to have a rotating system like they are talking about doing in Ontario. This takes a fair amount of research and a few years to set up but by doing so, you eliminate the destruction of the one slot size. Determine the slot sizes to be very specific for 2-3 years and then rotate for 2-3 years.

Dont get me wrong, having a single slot size is still 100% better then whats happening at the present time but lets just fix this problem once instead of two, three times.

Now, time for the real problem.

EDUCATION

This situation could have been fixed years ago if people were promoting
true conservation. C&R in Alberta seems to be a rare occurance and it really is quite sad. Ontario has more fresh water lakes then anywhere I know, you can quite honestly fish a different lake every day for your entire life and get your limits in 90% of your outtings. Fish are in abundance yet you still see people releasing trophies and even the smaller ones. It is frowned upon to keep trophies, why? People have been educated and have seen first hand what can happen when everyone fills their boat. I really hope that attitude can be adopted out here because this number of lakes cannot handle the pressure that will be placed on them in the next 10 years.

Its a sad day for the sport when people use the excuse "the fish was legal, the guy dosnt need to throw it back" Shame on you guys for having such an EXTREMELY POOR attitude towards the subject. We as fisherman shouldnt need the government to babysit us. We're on the water the majority of the time, not our government......we as fisherman know what needs to be done, lets not wait for them.

YES!!! Truer words have never been spoken right there ladies and gents. GREAT post KyleM.

[JohninAB]

Tundrabuck, by no means did I say give up just that we need a made in Alberta solution as we are at a considerable disadvantage in terms of fisheries when compared to the other provinces. The fishing pressure our few lakes get really hamstrings what we can do but there may be ways to address it that makes a win for the fishermen and the fish of this province. What that may be, I am not sure.

[Bogman10]

I couldnt agree more with you guys.

This is a tough subject to make everyone happy on which is why
I think youll see a few ugly remarks made in the next comming days.
Here are the problems that I see and some of the soloutions that seem
a little more reasonable then lobbying the lazy-no-goods for better regs.

Slot sizes and reduced limits:

By knocking down slot limits, your essentially putting a target on a certain year of fish. If this were to happen, you would notice a major decrease of the fishery in say, 5 years. The best way to handle slot limits (this is my opinion, folks) is to have a rotating system like they are talking about doing in Ontario. This takes a fair amount of research and a few years to set up but by doing so, you eliminate the destruction of the one slot size. Determine the slot sizes to be very specific for 2-3 years and then rotate for 2-3 years.

Dont get me wrong, having a single slot size is still 100% better then whats happening at the present time but lets just fix this problem once instead of two, three times.

Now, time for the real problem.

EDUCATION

This situation could have been fixed years ago if people were promoting
true conservation. C&R in Alberta seems to be a rare occurance and it really is quite sad. Ontario has more fresh water lakes then anywhere I know, you can quite honestly fish a different lake every day for your entire life and get your limits in 90% of your outtings. Fish are in abundance yet you still see people releasing trophies and even the smaller ones. It is frowned upon to keep trophies, why? People have been educated and have seen first hand what can happen when everyone fills their boat. I really hope that attitude can be adopted out here because this number of lakes cannot handle the pressure that will be placed on them in the next 10 years.

Its a sad day for the sport when people use the excuse "the fish was legal, the guy doesn't need to throw it back" Shame on you guys for having such an EXTREMELY POOR attitude towards the subject. We as fisherman shouldn't need the government to babysit us. We're on the water the majority of the time, not our government......we as fisherman know what needs to be done, lets not wait for them.

Your whole paragraph on Education was PERFECT!!!! Some people do not understand this is not the "Good Old day's". We have a ton more fishermen then ever before, Electronics that make it easier to fish new lakes with a way smaller learning curve, and the only thing we stock is Rainbows in the potholes anymore. ( Which I see some people filling entire coolers up, while baiting the water... I didn't have my cell phone, or I would have called, and they pretended they didn't know English, when I told them that was illegal )
I want to harvest a fish now and then, as I am sure most of you do as well.
We can do are part by limiting what we take out of the lake, not stocking the freezer, and remembering it is everyones resource.
Report a poacher is a toll free call!!!!

[TundraBuck]

Tundrabuck, by no means did I say give up just that we need a made in Alberta solution as we are at a considerable disadvantage in terms of fisheries when compared to the other provinces. The fishing pressure our few lakes get really hamstrings what we can do but there may be ways to address it that makes a win for the fishermen and the fish of this province. What that may be, I am not sure.

Good point. I thought the direction you were going with was "who cares"

You make a point, we have to come up with our own solution and not model after others.

[TundraBuck]

Your whole paragraph on Education was PERFECT!!!! Some people do not understand this is not the "Good Old day's". We have a ton more fishermen then ever before, Electronics that make it easier to fish new lakes with a way smaller learning curve, and the only thing we stock is Rainbows in the potholes anymore. ( Which I see some people filling entire coolers up, while baiting the water... I didn't have my cell phone, or I would have called, and they pretended they didn't know English, when I told them that was illegal )
I want to harvest a fish now and then, as I am sure most of you do as well.
We can do are part by limiting what we take out of the lake, not stocking the freezer, and remembering it is everyones resource.
Report a poacher is a toll free call!!!!

Yup. For lack of a better word, Meatheads have no place in our role for conservation. It is still a matter to be taken seriously but not as bad in a put and take lake, but still. Limit your catch, don't catch your limit. They should rephrase that, you can catch your limit and more, just don't keep them.

[Salvelinus]

1st of all- bull trout

Slot size would never work with this species. They do not reach maturity until around 50 cm size (females) and 5 years of age, then spawn every alternate year after that, usually until they reach about 9 or 10 years of age... if they are lucky enough to live that long. This is for migrant stream-dwelling fish. As for the 30-50 cm fish, these may not be as common as you may think.... Age classes occur stochastically. Some years are stong, others are weak. It would not take much pressure to knock a weak size class down to insufficient recruitment for the spawning size class. The ONLY way you could have an open season for this species with the amount of angling pressure Alberta east slope streams have is to have say a harvest of 1 over 80cm (of which there are VERY few) or go by a very regulated tag system as you suggest. There is some thought of doing this with the Lower Kananaskis Lake population, which is maxed out in population size.... Stream systems are much harder to follow and survey. And remember that any fish caught in the mainstem of a river came from a specific headwater tributary population.... Some of these populations are extremely fragile and depend heavily on just a few spawners.
The comment about bull trout knocking back other populations of trout is probably more complex. 1st of all, big migrants do the vast majority of feeding in lower stream reaches where the main prey base is the Whitefish and other coolwater forage fish (suckers, dace etc). In higher streams, they may actually knock back the populations of cutthroat or rainbows, but the overall biomass of fish probably stays the same because the prey trout remaining have less intraspecific competition and get larger. Once thet get to a certain size, they are out of the gape limit of the bull trout and cannot be eaten by them (They cannot eat fish larger than 50% thier own length, but will preferentially go for fish quite a bit smaller).... Try telling that to an oldtimer who was encouraged to whack bull trout: These bulls may actually make your cutthroat fisheries better.

Pike and walleye:
The Pigeon Lake blunder happened because angling pressure is so inordinately high in that lake. When people were no longer allowed to keep walleye, they harvested anything and everything they could catch. Would a simple reg of not allowing harvest of pike increase the size of Walleye? The phenomenon you have described is known as "thinning," which you have touched upon, and which I described above with the cutthroat. You suspect that letting larger pike survive would knock back the population of stunted walleye (who are stunted because intraspecific competition limits the food sources), and the remaining walleye would get larger. I say maybe, but probably not. Remember that a food web is very complex. Pike do not like to eat walleye. Given the chance, whitefish and to a lesser extent perch is thier food of choice in most lakes. In pigeon, stocks of whitefish and perch have also been heavily knocked back. Really, I don't know if anything other than shutting down that lake for harvest is going to do much. Obviously, the government would have cries of outrage if such a thing were done.

As for the comment of improving stunted pike populations with increased harvest? Stunted populations of pike are usually due to a poor base of forage fish. In a place like Twin Valley Reservoir (made very recently), the pike population has exploded, yet no other fish population has. The pike therefore only eat gammarus (freshwater) shrimp, and never get large because they cannot switch to being piscivorous, where they would have a much more energy-rich food source. A few fish will inevitably get large though because of cannibalism. No solution there by changing angling regs, but you'll typically see these lakes regulated as "3 any size"


What you guys have to realize is that Alberta fisheries are incredibly difficult to manage. We have far and away the highest angling pressure, but ironically, extremely low funding for management research. It would be great to have a team working on each waterbody so that each could be managed with peak efficiency, but good luck getting much government funding for that. Every fisherman and hunter has ideas on how to manage the resource, but ecosystems are ridiculously complex... there are no easy solutions guys. That's not to say that things cannot improve.... Look haw far we've come in that past 20 years with rec angling regs!

[honda450]

Do quite abit of fly fishing the southern eastern slopes. No lack of bull trout. I dry fly going for cutties and rainbows. To catch a bull on a dry is seldom. To catch a cuttie and then catch a bull is no problem. You can't help it. Those sharks come out of the deep.

[skykomish sunrise]

1 Awesome post salvelinus. thanks for the info
2 I really do like the tag idea for trophy fish.
3 Commercial fisheries suck
4 Close ice fishing on lakes where you want to make trout big
5 Barbless on hooks size 14 and smaller is stupid
6 More airators keeps fish alive=less need for constant stocking
7 C+R and staggered years of stocking makes bigger trout
8 Have fines help pay for the enforcement and start a crime stoppers like reward program
9 Start up a tag system for the keeping of all fish species...make the price very reasonable and set a limit of how many fish a person can keep in a year. Keep this tag separate from the trophy tag(which would cost much more)
10 Start up fly fish only lakes like in BC

[burbotman14]

i totally agree
Especially with gull and pigeon lake
Gull lake gets huge pressure in the winter and everyone usually gets and keeps their limit of whitefish and burbot
Burbot usually all get caught during spawning
If you think about it that millions of eggs being lost every year
and pigeon
There is so many fish (walleye) in pigeon it is rediculous. You can go there in the summer and catch over 100 easy every day. Every other fish in that lake has no chance whatsoever to reproduce. And also the limit of 10 whitefish at pigeon. That is all people go there for since you can't keep walleye
I think they have to filter out the number of walleye in that lake

[TundraBuck]

i totally agree
Especially with gull and pigeon lake
Gull lake gets huge pressure in the winter and everyone usually gets and keeps their limit of whitefish and burbot
Burbot usually all get caught during spawning
If you think about it that millions of eggs being lost every year
and pigeon
There is so many fish (walleye) in pigeon it is rediculous. You can go there in the summer and catch over 100 easy every day. Every other fish in that lake has no chance whatsoever to reproduce. And also the limit of 10 whitefish at pigeon. That is all people go there for since you can't keep walleye
I think they have to filter out the number of walleye in that lake

Good on ya burbotman. Good to see you start contributing some positive posts! Keep it up!

[Gordoats26]

My take.

We cannot compare our fisheries to any other province. We have 800 fishable lakes which means the fishing pressure they receive is astronomical to lakes in most other provinces. Check the web and compare fishing days per lake and you will be shocked. Our fisheries biologists face a tough battle and I believe they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. Saskatchewan for instance has 100000 fishable lakes, Ontario has way more.

As for slot limits like the other provinces have, I do not think they would work here because of this intense fishing pressure. If we were to have a slot size for fish, say 2 under 40 cm and 1 over 55cm, with the pressure on our lakes, it would be not very long before fish under 40 cm and fish over 55cm were to the point of being non-existant in the lake. With the severely limited numbers of fish under 40 cm left, the recruitment into the prime breeding size would be nil to non-existent darn near. Therefore as the breeding size fish age and die off, what is left for breeders with what would be low to nil recruitment?

I have fished Ontario and Saskatchewan quite a bit where you may see ten other boats on the lake all day. Now take a trip to say Pigeon or Lesser Slave or Sturgeon lake and you can count that many in at the boat launch. And even in those provinces, you are seeing more catch and release waters and tighter restrictions on what you can keep.

Having said all that, I would like to see a more aggresive walleye stocking program here in Alberta though.
Id agree with you to an extent but all i think is if you cant keep walleye in a lake you shouldnt be able to keep pike or anything else either otherwise eventualy the walleye overrun the lake just like whats happened out at pigeon then you have a stunted hungry unhealthy walleye population and a poor pike and perch population. I dont think stoking is the anser either i think it all needs to start with getting the regulations in check this whole tag thing isnt a bad idea its a little late and it needs to extend to more lakes such as Sylvan and pine which are both going down the same path as pigion,

[TundraBuck]

Id agree with you to an extent but all i think is if you cant keep walleye in a lake you shouldnt be able to keep pike or anything else either otherwise eventualy the walleye overrun the lake just like whats happened out at pigeon then you have a stunted hungry unhealthy walleye population and a poor pike and perch population. I dont think stoking is the anser either i think it all needs to start with getting the regulations in check this whole tag thing isnt a bad idea its a little late and it needs to extend to more lakes such as Sylvan and pine which are both going down the same path as pigion,

Gordoats you're exactly right and yes Sylvan and Pine this is going to happen to as well. The good news is, well what I was told anyways, is that Pine is going to be open next year for the walleye draw and maybe Sylvan as well. Let's cross our fingers this government can do something.