Proposed Fishing Regulation Change Elbow River

[Travis]

Bull trout populations in the Elbow River below Elbow falls is declining. Concern over misidentification of fish and subsequent harvest of bull trout is a contributing factor to this decline.

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) - Fish and Wildlife is proposing to change the existing regulations on the Elbow River between Canyon Creek and Hwy 22. The proposal:

Open June 16 to October 31
Trout and Mountain Whitefish limit 0
Bait ban

SRD, Fish and Wildlife will be hosting an open house on August 15th, 2007 at the Provincial Building in Cochrane from 3pm to 9pm. Please come out and discuss whether you support this recommendation.

If you are unable to attend and wish to provide an indication of your support or concerns please contact the Cochrane Fish and Wildlife office by September 30, 2007.

Travis Ripley,
Fish and Wildlife, Calgary

[winged1]

5 years overdue IMO.

[Okotokian]

Bull trout populations in the Elbow River below Elbow falls is declining. Concern over misidentification of fish and subsequent harvest of bull trout is a contributing factor to this decline.

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) - Fish and Wildlife is proposing to change the existing regulations on the Elbow River between Canyon Creek and Hwy 22. The proposal:

Open June 16 to October 31
Trout and Mountain Whitefish limit 0
Bait ban

SRD, Fish and Wildlife will be hosting an open house on August 15th, 2007 at the Provincial Building in Cochrane from 3pm to 9pm. Please come out and discuss whether you support this recommendation.

If you are unable to attend and wish to provide an indication of your support or concerns please contact the Cochrane Fish and Wildlife office by September 30, 2007.

Travis Ripley,
Fish and Wildlife, Calgary

Not sure it will do much good. The guy so uneducated (or unethical) he says "I didn't know it was a bull trout" will soon be saying "I didn't know it was a trout".

[goldscud]

Sounds good, but like Okotokian said, it will have little impact on the poachers. The guys who drive up the river on their quads and kill the bulls that are staging to spawn really don't care about the regs.

[700TI]

Alberta govt should never have shut down bull trout harvesting. They should have put a size limit on them. I wonder how many other sport fish the bull trout kills by the time it reaches 30".

[goldscud]

Bull trout and other native species populations existed just fine long before us guys with fishing rods showed up. The problem is that Bull trout take a long time to get sexually mature and they are easy to catch. A couple of guys with no ethics can wipe out a population in a summer. If people could have controlled themselves a little, bull numbers wouldn't have dropped so low that the government was forced to act to try and save some fish. Human greed is a scary thing. There is some places where bull populations have bounced back, but there is others that are still declining. The biggest cause of low numbers is from humans.

[Ray]

I would love to see a fishery close to Calgary where you could have a real chance to C & R an honest to goodness long as your leg trout.

My understanding is that part of the problem for the bulls is that the non-native brookies out compete them in an already low production ecosystem. What about a once or twice a year effort to thin out the brookies similar to what was done on Quirk creek for a couple of years.(All anglers must pass a stringent fish identification test, all brookies regardless of size must be kept)

[goldscud]

Bull and Brook trout can hybridize resulting in genetic pollution so targeting Brookies is a good thing.
There is 30" Bulls in the Bow river and it's tributaries. There may even be a lake in Kananaskis with some Bulls.

[Ray]

Not sure it will do much good. The guy so uneducated (or unethical) he says "I didn't know it was a bull trout" will soon be saying "I didn't know it was a trout".

If anyone chooses to participate in an activty with rules and either doesn't bother to learn them, or chooses to disregard them, he deserves to be sanctioned.

Ban him for life. (I know that seems harsh, but the rules are published and there is no excuse for violating them.)

The penalties should be severe.

[LongDraw]

It's messed up when you can use bait on a stream yet there are species in said stream that have a "0" harvest rate. Bait kills fish not barbs.