Help me understand Alberta commercial fishing practices.

[keljay]

Hello all;

I know at times this has been a heated issue on this forum, and I hope to avoid that in this topic.

I'm curious as to how exactly commercial fishing in Alberta happens. How do they set there nets? Do they use bait? How long are the nets allowed to be set out for? How do you net a lake that is frozen over? How do they retrieve their gear? etc etc...

Basically, I don't have any knowledge of how exactly it happens. My hope is that I, and others, can be more informed on this topic which will let us make more educated decisions/opinions.

Thanks

P.S. I tried a search on this topic but nothing came up, and I've also briefly searched google but couldn't find very much information.

[huntsfurfish]

Have you searched the SRD site for commercial fishing regs?

[keljay]

I have, and all I can find is info on buying/selling of fish.

[bisonhunter]

i don't know how the regs work in alberta, but i can answer one question for you. the way to set a net under the ice is by using a jigger. it was invented in 1912 by a manitoban fisherman/blacksmith. it's the crasiest looking contraption, but you attach it to a rope and with a series of short tugs on the rope, it propels itself forward under the ice with a metal spike. when it's gone out far enough you put another hole in the ice and pull up the rope. another rope is then attached to the first rope and everything is pulled back through the original hole. you now have a rope under the ice from one hole to the other. next attach your net to this rope and pull the net under the ice in between the two holes, and now your fishing.
look up "jigger time" on youtube, there are a couple of short vids showing the contraption in action.
cheers

[huntsfurfish]

cool tool!

Are they all that big(the jigger tool i mean)?

Walks better under the ice than I do above the ice.

[bisonhunter]

the longer they are the straighter they walk under the ice. you can buy six footers also from leckie's net and twine in edmonton. being a carpenter, my pride forced me to make my own for $45. mostly guesswork though, as there is no info hardly at all about these things on google.

[huntsfurfish]

Love to have a smaller one and walk it over to where my fishin partner is - scare the siit out of him:lol:

[keljay]

Wow that's a pretty cool device, I checked out some of the other videos that popped up on the side bar. So is that how they do it here too? Didn't seem like the guys in the videos were getting very many fish.

[deanmc]

I went out with a relative one year and it was a neat experience. He only had a license for one net in smoke lake at the time. He set his net perpendicular to the shore as whitefish tend to travel parallel with the shore while walleye and pike travel in and out from the shore.
The net had floats on top and weights on the bottom so it was at the top of the water. Whitefish are suspended and walleye and pike tend to stay closer to the bottom and below the net.
He had a homemade jigger that worked quite well. takes a good ear to find it and drill a hole just in front so you can pull it up.
he had to plant a stake at one end with some info. (name and license number)
He was allowed to have it in for 24 hours max but could only place it and pull it once.
I remember it was very important to set it so that we did not catch any pike because the larger pike roll up in the net and you will not catch anything else and they tear the nets up quite badly.
the time I went he had 27 fish(all whitefish and a couple ling) he was happy with that so i guess it was a normal amount.

[WayneChristie]

Love to have a smaller one and walk it over to where my fishin partner is - scare the siit out of him:lol:

giving me ideas for next winter ;) wonder how many tip ups you could set off at Clear or PCR with it :lol: or attach a dummy to it and scare the crap out of people :evilgrin:

[Albertadiver]

giving me ideas for next winter ;) wonder how many tip ups you could set off at Clear or PCR with it :lol: or attach a dummy to it and scare the crap out of people :evilgrin:

Haven't done it yet (been ice diving, not ice fishing sabatoging), but I'm ice diving certified, and one of these days I'm going to find someone fishing out of an outfitters tent, and I'll suit up in there, and sneak over to adjacent holes for some good ole' fun! :evilgrin:

[bisonhunter]

I went out with a relative one year and it was a neat experience. He only had a license for one net in smoke lake at the time. He set his net perpendicular to the shore as whitefish tend to travel parallel with the shore while walleye and pike travel in and out from the shore.
The net had floats on top and weights on the bottom so it was at the top of the water. Whitefish are suspended and walleye and pike tend to stay closer to the bottom and below the net.
He had a homemade jigger that worked quite well. takes a good ear to find it and drill a hole just in front so you can pull it up.
he had to plant a stake at one end with some info. (name and license number)
He was allowed to have it in for 24 hours max but could only place it and pull it once.
I remember it was very important to set it so that we did not catch any pike because the larger pike roll up in the net and you will not catch anything else and they tear the nets up quite badly.
the time I went he had 27 fish(all whitefish and a couple ling) he was happy with that so i guess it was a normal amount.

up here they are pretty generous with the licences. after your here for 2 years you can get a domestic fishing permit ($10)which allows you to net 100kg of fish for personal use anywhere on great slave lake, any species.
last spring i applied for and got my small craft (under 24ft) commercial licence ($30). i got the commercial one which allows unlimited amounts of fish, so that i could give fish to all of my friends and visitors from the south. but i sell a few around town by word of mouth also.
i had the net out for two weeks, and pulled it every other day (we are allowed to soak them up to 72 hrs between pulls). usually had about fifty fish per pull, mostly whites, with about 3-6 burbot, 2-3 lake trout,
5-12 inconnu, 2-3 suckers, and every 4th pull a small pike.
it sure is a lot of fun and something i had always dreamed of trying since i was a kid. don't do it for the money though, you won't get rich.
the other thing is that in a lake the size of gsl your not damaging the fishery at all. they are something like 500,000 kgs below the acceptable harvest levels. which is the only reason my conscience allows it. i'm a rod and reel fisherman first.
sure is nice to send friends home with 40 or 50 lbs of whitefish fillets from the only grade A body of water in the world that allows commercial netting.mmmmmmm good!