new idea for fish stocking/enhancement

[hit_theice]

I just thought of this tonight and i was wondering what everyone thought. It seems like everyone these days is doing lotteries. Full house, Oilers, star's air ambulance. Why not have an outdoors lottery with all of the profits going to enhance fishing and or hunting in alberta? The lottery would be geared towards people that love the outdoors. with quads, boats, trailers, snowmobiles, augers, tents, fish finders, gps, and other high end equipment. gift cards for fishing/outdoor stores, snowmobiles, fly in trips, vehicles or even luxury cabins. all the prizes are generally donated and the profits go to fish stocking of walleye and other species or even boat lauch/campground improvements. aeration projects and educational lakes similar to Muir. just an idea. i am sure some manufacturers would easily jump on board, berkley, sage, loomis, lowrance, polaris, etc. after all if fishing is enhanced then more people will be fishing and therefore using and buying more of their products in the long run everybody wins.

[billybobjimbo jr.]

Hit_theice,
I like your idea. Now how do we implement it? Anybody have government contacts to present the idea and get the ball rolling? Where would tickets be purchased? What would the cost for printing tickets , advertising/ promotion, and distribution be? Who would approach sponsors and convince them to get involved with merchandise and cash? Who would decide where the funds would be allocated?
I know I'd buy tickets but would want to know where the money was being directed.
Any ideas out there?
cheers,
BBJ Jr.

[I-Love-Eyes]

I like your idea too!:) Got to do more research though. Those lotteries you mention are all non-profit organizations and with ASRD involved in fishing/hunting/etc regulations, and some campgrounds (Provincial), people might think it's just another Gov't cash grab. If there was a way to do the lottery without gov't interference, it would be a great plan to enhance the resources of our great province!!

[Rumtan]

What about doing away with the serillization of the stocked trout.....even if just a few reproduced it would seem more beneficial to the depleating numbers?

[jts1]

What about doing away with the serillization of the stocked trout.....even if just a few reproduced it would seemm more beneficial to the depleating numbers?

X2 on that

[eys8830]

You would need a non profit organization to handle the money and direction if the funds. They should be able to handle some ticket sales and know which lake would be a good candidate for fish introduction and such.

Take Muir lake and the Edmonton trout fishing club. If your serious about getting this done you should approach on of these clubs they are always looking for volunteers and new ideas that come to benefit to the sport.

[jrs]

"What about doing away with the serillization of the stocked trout.....even if just a few reproduced it would seem more beneficial to the depleating numbers?"


Doesn't make a difference. There are very very very few stocked lakes where any trout spawning can occur, even if it does hatch rates are so low in still water you wouldn't notice any additional fish down the road. Brookies are about the only species that seem to pull it off in lakes with good groundwater influence, and that's a whole other issue as there's a lot of brookie haters in Alberta that would want nothing more than no more stocking of them any ways. I would not be at all surprised if brook trout stocking itself is completely phased out in the future.
The Alberta Government seems to prefer stocking lakes over establishing self sustaining trout populations as well. The area managers just don't seem to want the added management needed for self sustaining populations, they like to know trout go in every year and the fisherman are happy. Same reason the government is hesitant to introduce new species to many lakes, more species to manage means more work. Sucks but that's the way it works when funding is already stretched.

[Rumtan]

OK....well what about doing away with the waste of money it takes to sterilize them?

[jrs]

"OK....well what about doing away with the waste of money it takes to sterilize them?"

I'm not trying to defend the government here, though sterilization doesn't cost much (unless they switch to certified sterilized where each fish is tested). There will still be some non-sterile fished mixed in, the pressure treatment doesn't necessarily work 100% every time. But still, sometimes i wonder where their priorities lie. At least the growth rate should be a bit better.

[Rumtan]

So the point still stands....why do it in the first place? jrs I appreciate your thoughtful answers, but it seems to me that the time and effort could be well spent doing something more productive than sterilizing the eggs. Releasing sterilized fish doesnt help the numbers grow, surely natural reproduction would help increase the trout and help all that feed on the fry.....like birds, crayfish and other species of fish in the food chain?

[southunter]

Sterilization only makes up a small fraction of what it costs to raise a Kg of trout in a hatchery. Having fish that grow gonads and try to spawn, in most cases unsuccessfully, reduces their weight gain. Most fisherman want faster growing trout not more stunted trout.
As JRS stated it seems only brookies can pull it off and spawn in standing water. We have rivers full of self sustaining trout, most stocked puddles will never get there.

[The DragonSlayer]

Sterile trout grow faster, it seems, which is good for the Put & Take Ponds.
There are not too many ponds, reservoirs where successful spawning can take place. I'm sure the Fish Biologists arrange for fertile trout to be put into suitable habitats. I really don't think these guys are as dumb as some of us think!

[hit_theice]

they could use the money from the lottery to put spawning channels into the more popular lakes. i don't understand why brookies can successfully spawn seeing as they spawn in the fall. certainly the fetilized eggs don't last all winter. and wouldn't the brookies they put in be sterile too?

[Doc]

So the point still stands....why do it in the first place? jrs I appreciate your thoughtful answers, but it seems to me that the time and effort could be well spent doing something more productive than sterilizing the eggs. Releasing sterilized fish doesnt help the numbers grow, surely natural reproduction would help increase the trout and help all that feed on the fry.....like birds, crayfish and other species of fish in the food chain?

Other than Brookies and Lake trout (which are actually Char and not trout at all), trout can not spawn without moving water. Non sterile trout (diploids), will want to spawn in a stillwater fishery and will use up a lot of it's energy going into spawn mode especially the females which still produce eggs. Because these eggs can not be released, they must be absorbed back into the body causing a lot of stress and in many cases mortality. By sterilizing the trout (triploids), the energy that would have been used for spawning goes into feeding, making for big fish, fast. Females will not produce eggs meaning less stress and mortality rates go down. Another positive to triploids is with the chance of escape from hatcheries. In the past, if trout escaped a hatchery or a locked waterbody and got into a watershed, they would alter the fishery by reproducing (just look what Perch have done to stocked trout lakes at present). If sterile trout where to escape, they would eventually die off and the fishery would eventually turn around again.

A few years ago, some triploid rainbows escaped from a hatchery into Lake Diefenbaker...

http://www.trophytroutguide.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/world_record_rainbow_trout_konrads%20%28Small%29.j pg

The trout grew big and fast but can not reproduce so although they affect the fishery short term, they have no urge to find moving water to spawn and eventually die off returning the fishery to it's former state.

As far as spawning channels, our Bio's have formulas for how many trout are stocked into our stillwater fisheries according to how much pressure the fishery receives from anglers, predation from other forms (pelicans, loons etc...), and how much bio mass is available to the trout in the fishery. If you introduce a working spawning channel, how do they then control the numbers of trout? Before the gov't introduced triploids, we were planning a spawning channel for Muir Lake but that was just strictly for educational purposes and to help relieve stress on egg filled females. The flow would have been turned off well before any actual fry hatched.

Cheers,
Doc

[Rumtan]

Thank you for the insightful answers. Guess its kinda like steers and bulls. I have always wondered what the difference it made to the fish and now I understand better, thanks.

[hit_theice]

how do they control the numbers of trout??? ever hear of natural selection or survival of the fittest? do u actually think they need to control the numbers of the fish? carson lake is a prime example of them controlling the numbers of the fish. INCORRECTLY. they can't control the numbers of fish in any lakes in alberta. why do you think there are so many regulation changes? and now fishing draws. fishing draws limit what comes out theoretically, but they have no way of knowing what actually comes out or what is going to come out when the commercial fisherman hit the lake every winter. not to mention cabin owners taking one here and there for dinner. they can try and control things all they want but when they are doing it incorrectly then what? there is nothing you can do but like it or lump it. or even making zero harvest on a lake for walleye. what do u think happens? all the other species take the pressure then when the walleye rebound and u still can't keep them they eat everything and the other species have no chance in hell to recover. anyways i don't want to get into this. this thread is getting way off topic. it is supposed to be about a lottery to enhance fisheries not a biology lesson.

[Doc]

how do they control the numbers of trout???
They control the numbers of trout they stock into the fishery.

ever hear of natural selection or survival of the fittest? do u actually think they need to control the numbers of the fish?
If they over stock a fishery and the bio mass can not sustain the trout, the trout will starve or and/or stunt. Not much fun catching 10 inch fish all season with no chance of a football. To little and you get less use of the fishery because it get's known as hard to fish lake.

carson lake is a prime example of them controlling the numbers of the fish. INCORRECTLY.
There is no way to be sure exactly how many trout are in Carson without spending loads of money. They do their best and use an educated guess taking into account many factors (predation, angler pressure, bio mass, % of trout that will not take after stocking, etc...) but they over stock Carson due to the fishing pressure it receives. Carson is the busiest stocked lake in the province. If they don't stock enough trout, anglers go away unhappy. If they stocked more, the trout would never get over 10 inches.

anyways i don't want to get into this. this thread is getting way off topic. it is supposed to be about a lottery to enhance fisheries not a biology lesson. Lottery is not a bad idea. But who says where the money gets spent? Who's interests get fed? Walleye? Pike? Trout? lakes? rivers? studies? enhancements?

Cheers,
Doc

[jrs]

There's already lotteries/ raffles run through the Alberta Fish and Game Association, and groups like Trout Unlimited. Everyone who fishes and hunts in Alberta should have membership in groups such as these. The $25/ year or whatever it is now for a membership is well worth it. More members = more influence on government policy.

[hit_theice]

do you think that angler's going away from Carson lake unhappy would be a bad thing? i have heard stories of people cleaning the trout in there to find sunflower seed shells in the trouts stomachs from eating the shells that people spit out. they put way too many fish in it. causing the fish to be hungry and easier to catch. let the anglers leave carson unhappy and give the place a break. everything goes in cycles. i know when i want to go trout fishing Carson lake would be one of my last choices in the province. the fish would be better quality in general if they didn't put as many in. but maybe the new crayfish that someone put in there will help to feed the trout. apparently when u clean the rainbows they are full of them now. i have seen the same problems occur in pigeon lake, lake isle and lac st. anne. where the walleye take over the lake eating a great deal of the lakes biomass. Lake Isle even winter killed a few years back because there were too many fish in the lake. lac st. anne has had great walleye fishing for the last 5 or so years but the fish in there are growing very very slowly and in general very skinny. it is over populated with walleye. it seems like i am just catching the same size fish almost every year with maybe a little bit of growth noticed every year. barely catch any pike there anymore and they are even skinnier then the walleye. plus when lakes are over populated disease spreads easier and competition of similar size fish increases resulting in the same size fish trying to eat each other resulting in damage to fins and scales increasing the chance for infection/sickness.

[Doc]

I know what you're saying. I prefer to fish a lake with a good chance at a trophy myself and have only fished Carson once. But the Govt's mandate for put and take fisheries, is for anglers to have high catch rates and to keep their limit. You and I might think it's over stocked but to the thousands of families who enjoy Carson every year, they're quite content with taking their limit and cooking it on the BBQ back at the campsite every night. I say let 'em have Carson. The province have started a mandate for quality stocked trout lakes and it's in these fisheries where we'll see reduced stocking numbers, triploid trout, reduced limits and special regulations. An example of what to expect is fisheries like Muir, Beaver, Ironside, Police and Bullshead. On the other hand, if our govt over stocks these lakes, we're in the same boat aren't we?

Cheers,
Doc