Pine Coulee-quality stocked (trout) fishery poll
 

Hi guys,
after seeing the government is going towards testing rainbow trout stocking in Pine Coulee, I have to ask if there is interest in looking into making it a quality stocked trout fishery?

We dont have any quality stocked trout fisheries south of Calgary to speak of, and it looks to have excellent potential with depth and available forage. With Chain lakes already there as a put and take trout lake, I think the need and interest in a quality stocked trout lake is here right in front of our noses at Pine Coulee.

With the addition of an aerator, I think it could be an excellent legacy project for government.

I would like to submit this poll for the government to consider.

Should not be a trout fishery at all in my opinion but I don’t enjoy fishing for stockies.

not even if they are 10 lbs?

Nope but I also believe stocked fisheries that don’t reproduce are a waste of resources that would be better spent creating sustainable fisheries

Caught lots of big wild trout in my life no interest in a stocked pond for false trophies

Seeing that Chain us just over the porcupines from there i would say yes. manage it for big. Since the walleyes were a big fail and creating a simple pike/perch/whitefish fishery seems to be off the table, i can't imagine there is any "natural" option that would actually end up being self sustaining.

I'll take stocked trout over nothing.

I know it's primary reason for irrigation but you would think you could do some designing of spawning habitat, when these go in.

I appreciate your point of view. I used to have a similar view myself, and I wish I could still join ya in that perspective, as wilderness rivers are sacred, but I am not convinced that the wild fisheries are going to make it long-term.

I think if we want to catch large trout, unfortunately the future will be quality stocked lakes that have the ability to over Winter (and Summer) trout.

I’d love nothing more than our beautiful wild trout to prove me wrong.

all the best
Adam

Trout would be good IF they get all the walleye and pike out of there otherwise they’ll just be feeding them. If they were to stick a hundred thousand or so trout and make it minimum 12 inch there would be some nice ones there in a short period of time. It’s kinda nice that it’s a good sized lake so it has potential for a trophy fishery along with bringing a few home for the pot

We all have our opinions and views on what we want to experience for our fishing and that does not mean anyone is right or wrong. Just because it’s not for me does not mean I can’t respect why others enjoy it

Personally I fish out side of Alberta as well and those trout fisheries are under no threat. Also in my opinion there is plenty of over looked quality fishing in Alberta as well some it’s just people don’t take the time to figure them out

It’s going to become a stocked trout fishery either way I won’t fish it but I bet many others will enjoy it

Would be nice to have a stillwater option with trout over 22" within 3 hours of Calgary.
Walleye were stunted there so perhaps some rainbows could grow better

I'm going on personal observations and hearsay, but the popularity of Police Lake south of Cardston seems to have diminished since they changed it into a "quality" fishery. I'm not sure what the ratio of people who would like to catch and release good sized fish compared to people that want to keep and take them home is, but it seems that many want to take them home to eat, judging by the couple of incidents of poachers I've seen at Police. I've heard that the campground has spots most of the time, even on long weekends.

Personally, I'd be all for another trophy fishery at Pine Coulee, but that's just my personal view and the type of fishing I like.

Police out post
 

Police outpost was doing excellant as a trophy lake--you could keep one over 50cm--No problem on 30 plus releases in a am in the high 40scm, A fly fishermans lake--A bad overwinter caused a serious setback.You have Macvinnie and payne lake close by for good eating trout.

I'm just stating my owner observations that it isn't as popular with anglers as is used to be, since changing the regulations. The fishing was great this year.

It makes sense that the number of fishermen would go down, since a large portion of fisherman want to catch and eat. And that is one thing stocked trout lakes are great for providing. My non-biologist opinion is that any lake that could winter reliably without aeration are the first candidates for trophy management.

Why can’t we have a perch and trout lake combined? Why does it have to be one or the other in Alberta??

They couldn’t manage the walleye they had there and they won’t be able to manage the trout either. They had it closed for so long there were so many walleye they where stunted but fun to catch you could get 40-60 an hour compared to now where there’s no fish in the lake. If you want to catch big trout in a well managed fishery in Calgary move to one of the lake communities like McKenzie lake I’ve seen 10 lb+ bows come out of the ice more than once and its stocked with bows browns and brook. Alberta isn’t bc we will never have anything that compares to the trout fisheries there.

Not a trout fisherman so donesnt really matter. I bet the 30k trout they threw in a few years ago got eaten pdq.
I am not sure why it needs aeration as to my knowlege it has never had winterkill issues. Lots of depth for them and lots of bug food. Walleye main issue is they are a protein/predator eating fish and someone forgot to tell them to stock the food supply too.
They were discussing tigers at one point but a bio told me they were worried about escapees going downstream and eating everything out so decided against it.
Trout still the best option in my opinion but good luck on the trophy part. Tons of poaching goes on there too for walleye but bet big trout would be the same.

Without predators such as pike or walleye the perch will overpopulate themselves until they're stunted, then out compete the trout for food.

The greatest concentration of anglers is at C&R lakes. The poorest on lakes where trout and perch exist.
Why you ask. One provides trout to 5 lbs. and the other provides perch to 6” and trout to 12”.

Don

I would be very much in favor of a quality stocked trout fishery.The trout get to be quality/trophies.By having appropriate regulations.Limiting to a a C&R status,until they ,get established.Then perhaps a retention of 1 over 50cm.Specific seasonal closures ,like the other QSF'S Nov1-April 1 it would be closed.NO BAIT ,Aerating would be nice,just in case of low oxygen.Would definitely reduce the pressure,on Beaver,Police..

lets put the money into management of our native species.

Yes in favor...It seems that they're going to try to make it a trout fishery 36800 5.4 cm went in there in 2019.They i hope added a reg change,making it a qsf.Otherwise,this will just mean a shorter drive .Than going to Chain.To catch tiddlers. I am hopefull..

Why waste resources when we already have a world class fishery, it just needs protection, Glenmore reservoir. Lots of rainbows and brown trout are caught in that water, 5-15lb specimens, few even bigger. Glenmore can grow them without any plugins. Daily limit of 5 trout does not help this fishery, bait does not help it either.

"Government legacy" of concrete raised non native fish, with millions of dollars wasted for a feel good factor should never be considered. It's a wrong direction that majority is in favor off, as if prior stockings of different water bodies made any difference, not really unless they put in more fish every few years. That is an ongoing failiure of fish managment in this province.

Dubious, Walleye didn't fail in Pine Coulee due to overstocking. The water qualities of the lake inhibit proper algae communities that support a thriving population of bait fish. Therefore there was not enough meat for the walleye to grow to any size.
Since trout can grow better while existing on invertebrates, perhaps there is a better opportunity for a quality lake holding trout

Let us do both.

Not hard, just elect the ones interested.

Don

The government stocked 30,000 9 to 14 cm AF3N's in Pine Coulee around mid October of 2017.

Up here German Brown's and Yellow Perch at Obed Lake

Brown's to over 13#

Perch to 2 #

when it had rainbows 16 #

Obed is very busy lake

Sean love's catching 28 inch Brown's in a C & Ks

Miller's lake has 25 inch + Rainbows

ask your Bio's in your area to put some hens in those lakes just like Manitoba

just saying

David :)

David,

Have we sunk so low in fish management we need trophy fish just out of concrete tanks?

And I’ve caught a few of those Brooders in Manitoba. A sad experience. I’ve caught walleye with more jam.

Don

A good news story
 

Agreed. A perfect managed stocked trout lake has a good balance of trout to food. Natural growth rates means big rainbows. Improved with more trout species variety in the lake.

Worst is perch added. Trout don’t grow. Perch don’t grow.

In Lake Sundance I had the opportunity to try to create a quality trout fishery after the illegal introduction of perch.

For years we netted thousands of perch while seeing the population climb.

Dropping a camera down any ice fishing hole, one could count 1000 perch. Trout stocked would not grow and would lose weight. I could easily and consistently catch 50 perch an hour.

Something has happened recently. Last year we dropped the camera down and could count 8 perch. This past summer I and buddies fished hard for perch and many times got skunked.

So what changed?

I was in charge of trout stocking. I had brook trout and brown trout added to our license and in 2016 stocked 1000 browns 5-7 inch long and 1000 brooks from 7-11 inch long.
In Fall 2018 and 2019 we stocked 2000, 14-16 inch rainbows.

What I believe has happened is the brooks and brown predated heavily on young of the year perch. Rainbows likely got some as well. While the perch population lost significant numbers of new perch at the same time perch had been dying of old age. That could suggest the loss is a combination of age mortality and predation.

Angling pressure was present although not significant.

Three years ago the average size perch was 5-6 inches. Zero 8-10 inch perch were seen out of thousands of perch caught.

This summer it was fairly common to catch 8 inch perch with some as big as 10 inch caught.

Clearly there is more food for the perch.

This year we also tried some supplemental trout feeding. Trout as a result maintained or noticeable grew in size around areas with feeding. In other areas the larger trout had good body condition and did not seem to have significant weight loss as observed 3 years ago..

Based upon my observations I would encourage F&W and other agencies to try similar practice. I would encourage them to stock predatory trout species like brook and brown trout in a large burst to start targeting perch.

I would also encourage them to sell trout pellets at cost and encourage anglers to feed them to maintain size and quality while perch populations decrease.

I strongly believe we have greatly improved the trout fishing in Lake Sundance.

3 years ago we realistically had rainbow trout to 12 inches and perch to 6 inches

No we have rainbows to 22 inches, brook trout to 16 inches, brown trout to 16 inches and perch to 10 inches.

I hope browns will eventually get to 30 inches and would be happy to see brooks to 18 inch and rainbows to 24 inches and perch to 12 inches.

Chow

Sun

Good story Sundance. I know you've done a ton of posts about this but a this was a good summary including what you are seeing now. I wonder about the predation. It seems to add up and what else could make the quick a change. Yellow perch live 9-10 years on average so it seems likely that may have been another factor too.

At any rate, I'm glad that is turning out for Sundance.
And, I doubt you would here much complaining about brookies and browns being stocked in perch invested, previous trout lakes. At least if it speeds up the process, adds variety, seems good to me.

Can’t say for certain but it you consider 3 years of predation and 3 years of old age mortality that leaves 3 year classes that would make up the main, current catchable perch population.

Combined both mortality causes can explain a sharp decrease. As the next 3 year classes reach old age, that will be telling on perch size and catch rates.

If predation is not the cause and just a blip in the perch population we should see a turn back to the old over population days.

That being said...4 years ago there were schools of young of the year perch in the shallows everywhere.

This year there were large schools of lake chub minnows. Previously perch had decimated the lake chub and fathead minnow populations in the lake.

So far all indications point to a positive improvement to the trout fishery here.