Pigeon lake news

[Bear Ballz]

Anglers fishing for change
To have one of the best whitefish fisheries in Alberta decimated is unacceptable

Rosemary Austen; editor@wetaskiwintimes.com
Monday April 16, 2007

Anglers allege mismanagement of Pigeon Lake have put a strain on fish populations and have called an urgent meeting.
"This meeting is to inform the public about walleye stocking in the lake from 1994 to 1999," said area fisherman Erwin Zotzmen.
During this time frame, approximately 18.4 million walleye fry and fingerlings were released into the lake with zero harvest.
Area anglers are starting to question the purpose of overstocking and fear it may be changing the natural order of the lake's ecology.
"Why are the there so few whitefish left and no perch? Why are the pike in such poor condition?" Zotzmen demands.
Research on Pigeon Lake shows the lake was heavily stocked with over 18 million fry (freshly hatched fish eggs) and fingerlings from 1994 to 1999.
"Assuming a conservative 10 per cent survived, the lake has a population of over two million walleye, with zero harvest," Zotzmen noted.

He considered two studies.
The first, a commercial fishing survey done in December 2000, showed the average catch per net was 115.48 whitefish and 5.03 walleye.
"This gave us a ration of one walleye per 23 whitefish, quite normal for the history of the lake."
A creel survey, done just four years later on September 2004, showed a marked change in ratios from walleye to whitefish. Out of six nets set a total of 305 fish were caught, a ratio of 3.4 walleye per one whitefish.
"As the walleye is the top predator it isn't hard to figure out why there are no whitefish, perch or pike," Zotzmen said.
Another disturbing statistic came from a survey done in 2003. It indicated 66,067 walleye were caught and released from the lake that year. With a mortality rate of 5.6 per cent around 3,700 would die after being released. This amounts to a waste of 8,599 kilograms of fish.
"If these stats hold true for 2004, '05 and '06, we have deliberately wasted 80,000 pounds of walleye. This boarders on a criminal act."
Zotzmen spoke to the delicate nature of a fishery.
"To have one of the best whitefish fisheries in Alberta decimated by mismanagement is unacceptable. At the end of the day, we have a lake with no whitefish, perch or pike and a part of the west end, including Tide Creek, permanently closed to all fishing. (What we have now is) a lake with millions of walleye that will have to start eating each other to keep from starving to death."
Area fishermen are asking that the tag system be dropped in favour of regulations that allow for one walleye per day per fishing licence. They ask the new regulation to take effect the long weekend of May through to March 31, 2008. They also unanimously agreed to reduce the daily whitefish limit from 10 to five.
A special meeting on the issue will be held at the Thorsby Community Hall, April 24, starting at 7 p.m. Representatives from Minister Ted Morton's office, Fish and Wildlife Management and other MLAs including Tony Abbot have been invited to speak on the matter and answer questions. Coffee and doughnuts will be served at 6:30 p.m.

[FiveO]

Sounds all to familar. Glad to see I dont stand alone on the miss managment thats left our lakes in bad shape with no balance.

[SNAPFisher]

I didn't expect to read a post like this. I will definately follow this with great interest.

BB, do you know if the public is allowed to attend the meeting on the 24th?

Thanks for the post by the way!

[Bear Ballz]

I believe it is a general public meeting, anyone concerned can attend.

[Bullcrap]

I do not know if I buy that argument.

For one, commercial fishing and a creel surveys are two completely different things. Commercial fishing tries to target specific species creel survey’s target all species. Comparing the two is not a fair argument. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.

I don't think Whitefish are the main food source for Walleye. In my opinion, Walleye feed mainly on Perch, Burbot, Suckers, young Walleye, and bait fish. I understand that younger Whitefish suspend over deep water during the open water season feeding on small critters. Walleye typically feed along the bottom. The live in different area’s of the lake.

I have not noticed a decline in Whitefish at all in Pigeon Lake. For me the fishing has been as normal this year as it has been in the past 10 years for me for Whitefish. I've faired ok catching Whites through the ice and have not noticed any change other than the Whites are much bigger in average size thanks to the stop of commercial fishing over the past few years. If anything I’d say it has improved.

The perch issue is 100% blame on the angler. The perch were out fished from Pigeon over 5 years ago. 100’s of anglers every day keeping there limits of 30 fish not to mention how many Perch died after release as many of the Perch caught in Pigeon during winter are caught in 30ft of water (swim bladder issues). There are many perch in Pigeon just not keeper size. The Walleye are not to blame here.

Pike. Again in my opinion I see absolutely no change in how many pike I catch today as compared to 10 years ago.

Also, a zero limit on Walleye does not account how many Walleye are lost in the C&R process plus the draw system that is now imposed on the lake to allow controlled harvest. I’ve seen many Walleye afloat on the surface during the summer most likely a result from poor handling of the fish. And the Walleye in Pigeon reportedly do not appear to be spawning very well so the rate of regeneration is most likely not stable as the other species.

Sounds like a old timer who just wants something to complain about. My guess is that they will want to re-open commercial fishing too as that is a common activity for folks in the Thorsby area. Sorry, I’m not buying it.

[Pigeon]

For the most part I'm with Penner on this one. It never ceases to amaze me what excuses people will come with up to try and justify bonking a bunch of fish.

[happy perch fisher]

Hi penny. A penny the perch limit for pigion was 5 five years ago so maybe u sould of kept to many. Second the perch fish would still be in there and thriving. My grandpa fished the lake 30 years ago when there was no walleye in there and when people filled up the back of there trucks with them. The fishing was about the same intel they shut down the walleye population. Hi penny does'nt it seem strange how as soon as they shut down the walleye population the perch population dissapears. While why would it happen to all other lakes with coplassed walleye populations to then also how long u fished pigion lake for 5 years. U use to be able to go out on the lake 20 years ago 5 feet from shore drop your hook down and in 20 minutes have like 40 whitefish. Penny also don't u notice that there are no small whitefish and only a few massive whitefish. So what penny when there are no whitefish in the lake u going to say that no one can find them but there still there.

[Pigeon]

happy perch fisher


You’re entitled to your opinion as am I.

I’ve been fishing on Pigeon for close to 20 years now myself. The Walleye have always been in Pigeon undoubtedly, the numbers have increased greatly since the stocking starting back in 99. However the Perch fishing was on the downhill slide well before the stockings and I noticed it 10-12 years ago. I‘m no biologist but I’m 100% convinced it was due to over fishing and the high catch limits and it happened before the Walleye were ever stocked. A lake can not sustaine hundreds maybe thousands of people keeping their limits of 30 fish every weekend. I agree that the increased Walleye population would effect the Perch population somewhat, but mother nature has it’s way of balancing things out.

For your information a few buddies and myself targeted Whites on Pigeon for a few days in December and for a few days in January this past season. Our group landed easily between 10 – 20 fish each outing and between the 3 of us we kept around 10 Whitefish total during all of those days of fishing. We did not have any issue finding the Whitefish. We also saw and caught a good mix of Whitefish of all sizes a sign of a healthy population. The average size is larger due to the fact the big ones are now not be caught in commercial nets. Prior to that all you could catch were smaller Whites. As well from time to time we did see a fair amount of smaller Perch trying to steal our bait while fishing for the Whites.

happy perch fisher, Perhaps you should fish a little further out than 5ft from shore. My experience tells me that Pigeon is a somewhat shallow lake and if your fishing only 5ft out from shore you’re probably only in 6” to about 1 foot of water. We caught most of our fish in about 7-10ft of water. Spell check may not be a bad idea either. Take care.

[FiveO]

Peeny, Perch has some valid points and obsevations. The same thing happened at Lac Saint Anne which was rarely fished for perch. Ive been fishing the lake for over twenty years and i fish with some geezers that have been fishing it for over fifty. The older gents have the opinion that the lake is over run by walleye and the rest of the fishery has become collapsed and I have to agree.
Ive beat the topic, mismanagement of our lakes to death already.
Does anyone know were i can get my hands on any research conducted on the lakes that were clasified as collapsed?.

[SNAPFisher]

It is penner, not penny guys.

Penner, nice response to such a poor post from HPF. I'm glad the admin edited it a bit as it was very hard to read and understand in its original form (also quite rude). Good on you!

I can't say the cause of the fish collapse of the other species or even if it is really callapsed. I just don't know enough about the lake. The only thing that I do know is that I have not seen a single perch on the AquaView yet and have only witnessed maybe a handful being caught in my 15 or so visits to Pigeon (open and hardwater). Since 2002 I have experienced the walleye fishing which is nuts. I don't of many other lakes where I might catch as many in a day as Pigeon. They are plentiful right now.

FiveO, that is great idea to locate some past information on the fishery. If you have any luck in locating anything, I would appreciate if you could let me know. I have a great interest in reading this. If I can find anything on the subject I will certainly let you know.

Cheers!

[SNAPFisher]

Just one more thing, below is a pic of a nice white that I caught just this past Saturday at Mulhurst. There are some great quality whites in Pigeon. Enjoy!

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a117/APetesky/Pigeon0414002.jpg

[happy perch fisher]

Lol my grandpa use to fish for them 5 feet from shore 30 years ago.while in 2001 the average perch being kept by most people was around 9-10 the next year it was around 7-9 and then next year it was bewteen 6-7. I think what happened was people kept all the big ones and the walleye killed off all the small ones. But another fact was that pigion had a ratio of 500 small ones to 1 that was bigger then 6 inches. Also only reason why whitefish are still in there is because they grow really fast. Also anyone catch any whitefish in the 10-15 range because the smallest i heard of being caught was 18 inches. Also u did'nt notice huge school of little minnows swimming the bottom. Another fact is if there was no walleye in pigion lake. There still would be perch in there. Because most people would'nt keep a 5 inch perch and those are big info to spawn. I think the only way to fix pigion is to charge like 500 dollars for like 100 walleye tags. This way they make some money to restock the fish back and remove alot of those walleye. Because if they just open the lake up for even 1 fish its going to get fished out in 3 weeks. That still would'nt fix the problem. The whitefish are basically gone and the perch are 100 percent gone. They would have to restock massively which cost massive amount of money.

[SNAPFisher]

Hey all.

I just received an email back from the editor of the original article. I quote:
-----
Yes the meeting is open to the general public!
-----

I'll be there on the 24th. Looking forward to what will be said and asking a lot of questions and learning. I'll post back on anything that I find out.

HPF, another hard to read post. I think the gist of what you are trying to say is that the walleye are over-populated in Pigeon. Yes? And, the cause of decline of some of the other species. Yes?

One more thing, no disrespect to your grandfather, but who gives a crap what fishing was like 30 years ago. It was fantastic all over according to my grandfather and father too. We are dealing with the present and future. Things are much different now especially with # of anglers.

[Fish]

FiveO,

I also fish St.Anne and I regularly catch perch out there while ice fishing nothing big (10” plus) however. I argue your opinion as well. St.Anne was never stocked with Walleye like Pigeon was. In St.Anne it has been all natural reproduction and Mother Nature has its way of balancing things out. I’m unsure to where you or the older fellows get the idea that St.Anne is being overrun with Walleye or where the miss-management of our lakes is coming from? Lots of Pike, Walleye, Perch, Whites, and Burbot in St.Anne???

Lake Isle just upstream of St.Anne has a good population of Walleye and I, as well as many others have no issues catching Pike or Perch out of Isle. How would you explain that? Note, with the pressure of angling for Perch this past winter on Isle, I’m certain the Isle is at risk of losing its healthy Perch population as well. Reducing the limits may be its only chance.

My whole issue is - Our Lakes are obviously not as good as it was 40 or 50 years ago. Why? Well there are thousands more people fishing now either commercially or recreationally then back in the day and improper management of fishing pressure vs. bag limits. Can you honestly tell me that fishing now compared to 10 even 5 years ago is not better all around? How can that be miss-management??? Is it perfect no, but better yes! In my opinion at least and it will only improve from this point forward.

SNAPFisher,

On Pigeon if you try along the far Northside shore or straight out from the Sandholm road in roughly 25-30ft of water you’ll find Perch. In Pigeon for some reason the Perch prefer deeper water. It’s always been like that. Do not know why. Also, I have regularly seen the odd smaller Perch swimming around while fishing in shallower for Whites. Off the bottom is best. Just timing I guess?

[SNAPFisher]

Penner, I agree with you that things are much, much better than 10 years ago. That is a general statement to fishing and not a particular lake. There may be some failures occurring and yet to occur but I feel that successes will far out number the failures.

Also, thanks for the perch info. I didn't even ask so that was very good of you. Cheers!

[FiveO]

Well Penner thanks for your opinion. I own a cabin on Saint Anne and fish the lake almost every weekend summer and winter and yes there is a problem with Pike and Perch populations. Since the closure Perch and Pike have been on a steady decline and fishing for walleye is nuts for small ones. Like i said in an earlier post prior to closure there were lots of qaulity eyes 5lb plus. I catch my own shinners out of Saint Anne and there is hardly any perch caught in the net compared to even 5 years ago and alot fewer shinners.

I have been fishing Isle for years as its only 20 mins from the cabin and yah the perch fishing is Okay.

So maybe you can help me out then with some direction and pointers to fishing Saint Anne for perch?.

[Snapfisher]

Snapfisher, nice white. A buddy and I were cloe to you on saturday. Had a quad , icecube and 1 man pop-up. All we got was 2 wallys biggest 49.5cm.
Good fishing
Doug

[Fish]

Five0,

Short of providing anyone cord's off of the old GPS. Approximately 1/2 mile out WSW from the island it comes up from 25ft to about 20ft of water on a mid-lake hump or on the southeast end off of the big point on the drop off again in about 20-25ft of water. Tried it out late Feb of this year and caught perch however nothing worth keeping.

I've also done well in the past just out from the narrows.

[FiveO]

Fished all three spots this year and nothing. What kind and color truck you in I probably talked with yah.

Fished all structure and drops 20-34 feet nothing even seen on the camera. Funny.

[happy perch fisher]

Apparently penner catches lots of perch out of pigion and lac st anne even throw people that live have'nt even seen them in along time. Penner u are so full of @#%$. Also i got a question for snapfisher are u actually listening to what penner is saying.

[SNAPFisher]

HPF, I am listening to the entire post. Are you? I am referring to the 2nd half of the 3rd paragraph in his last post. I quote:

Can you honestly tell me that fishing now compared to 10 even 5 years ago is not better all around? How can that be miss-management??? Is it perfect no, but better yes! In my opinion at least and it will only improve from this point forward.

Did you even read that far?

[SNAPFisher]

Hey dugh! Yeah, I know who your referring to. Facing the shore you were just left of us? You guys stayed until the big wind came up as well?

Nice day out there. The place where we ended up is the only place we saw whites and caught one each. We caught the tail end of the white fiesta. The walleye were ridiculous in one spot that we found by a rock. You could count on them coming in about every 4-5 minutes. From 4-6 p.m. I caught about 12 alone. Some where very decent sized and we also saw several large ones on the cam. Great day!

[happy perch fisher]

my post has nothing to do about that

[hemipowered]

HPF did you not learn from your first ban, you're an idiot.

[Duffy4]

I think I will go to this meeting to support the proffesional fish management people who work hard to try to manage our fisheries resources. It may be interesting to see what some of the "well intentioned complainers" have to say. I wonder if they will be there to present their opinion and listen to a responce or if they are there just to rant.

Robin

[south lakes d]

I fish mcgregor quite a bit and ever since the walleye stockin the pike have went to hell. Not sure if its anglers keepin them or walleye competing with them. I think they should open the limit on walleye with size restrictions and see what happens. Noticed same on other lakes pike fishing declining doesnt seem like the 25" size and 3 fish limit are workin.

[Fish]

FiveO, too much snow for us to get on with a pick-up but we were out on quad's. I have a honda rubicon and buddy has a polaris sportsman. Tried many hooks, best luck was a small glow in the dark Cyclops spoon tipped with maggots or a small minnow. Nailed a few walleye and pike out there too. Overall I thought St.Anne was very slow this year for all species.

SNAP, that was a good sized White (pic wouldn't pop up for me earlier). How do you normally cook them? Smoked?

[SNAPFisher]

Hey duffy. I'll be there as well. Feel free to say hello. I'm there to listen and learn mostly but will certainly provide input if asked. Hope some others can make it out too.

Penner, actually I'm going to try smoking one of the whites from Saturday for the first time. I have smoked rocky mountain whites which are excellent. I suspect lake whites will be even better. The majority of times I have prepared whites by filleting, wetting the fillet, coat them with fish crisp, fry them in a bit of olive oil and then season them with pepper and salt just after frying. soooooooooooooooooo good! The thing about whites is that they have so little fishy taste and they take on other flavors very well like sauces. This leaves them open to all kinds of recipes. Even the most simple of barbecued with salt and pepper is good with whites. Very versatile fish.

[FiveO]

Penner,
The fishing was great this year for Eyes as it has been for years. Pike and Perch fishing was terrible.

Dam sure the reason for the decline of perch is walleye considering Perch are there prime food source.

In most of the species' range, the majority of male walleyes mature at age 3 or 4. Females normally mature about a year later. Adults migrate to tributary streams in late winter or early spring to lay eggs over gravel and rock, although there are open water reef or shoal spawning strains as well. Some populations are known to spawn on sand or on vegetation. Spawning occurs at water temperatures of 6 to 10º C (43 to 50º F). A large female can lay up to 500,000 eggs and no care is given by the parents to the eggs or fry. The eggs are slightly adhesive and fall into spaces between rocks. The incubation period for the embryos is temperature-dependent but generally lasts from 12 to 30 days. After hatching, the free-swimming embryo spends about a week absorbing the relatively small amount of yolk. Once the yolk has been fully absorbed, the young walleye begins to feed on invertebrates such as fly larvæ and zooplankton. After 40 to 60 days, juvenile walleyes become piscivorous. Thenceforth, both juvenile and adult walleyes eat fish almost exclusively, frequently yellow perch or ciscoes, moving onto bars and shoals at night to feed. Walleye also feed heavily on crayfish, minnows, leeches, and earthworms.

[soiler1]

I grew up fishing pigeon lake for past 25 or 30 years. I've only kept a fishing log for about 7 years tho. a buddy and i keep going out in the same spots each year and do quite well. Yes, u can still find perch in pigeon but the ones big enough to keep are few and far between.the whites have always been big.I've seen 5 lbs whites for years, but the abundance of smaller whites has seemed to have disappeared over the past few years even after the commercial fishing was taken out of the lake. The walleyes used to average about 6 or 7 lbs any given day and were fat,chunky, healthy looking fish. Now the average has dropped to around 2 or 3 lbs & now seem to be alot skinnier and longer than they used to be.Just don't look as healthy. Its almost like they're stunting in growth. I'm not saying that you can't catch big walleye still but you sure have to work for it alot harder. What those guys are proposing to the government makes sense to me, if they only allow fish under 43 cm, to keep the big spawning females in the lake to keep producing what little they can. There was a meeting out at Falun about 3 or 4 years ago,where the government biologists produced their study's findings. They classified all species but the lake whitefish in pigeon lake as collapsed. The walleye have come back since,due to how many stocking programs? thanks to about 18 million fry & fingerlings. The pike and ling populations had been declining for years nad so they dropped the limit to 1 over 63 cm, and banned fishing for ling in late march, when they are spawning.If we give the rest of the lake a break with taking smaller walleye out on a tagging system
, it may give the jacks and the perch, the ling a chance to increase their spawing populations. I'm going to be at that meeting in thorsby to watch the show anyways regardless.

[happy perch fisher]

have u actually caught any perch like my grandpa seen 1 in shallows 2 years ago but that was it. Like i talking about more then 1 or 2 super rare fish.