would this ever happen
 

this is my first year of real fishing, like hardcore fishing. ive come to really enjoy fishing. but who cares. What ive noticed is that people keep a crap ton of fish. Through websites, being out on the lake, talking to people, i noticed people keeping way more fish than i thought. Now im not saying people shouldn't keep fish, Its just that I think the limits right now are not enough.

My Idea : would be "fish tags". you know like deer. you buy a tag per fish you keep. I think if you kept it to a reasonable prices (slightly cheaper than buying a frozen fish from T&T ;) ) It would hopefully keep down the amount of fish being taking out down. This way you have to plan out that you wanna keep and that Alberta F&WL get a lil chunk o change for restocking programs. Also this way you could keep a "monthly tab" sorta deal where you could only buy so many tags a month. Try to keep the alberta attitude " TAKE IT ALL TILL ITS GONE" toned down abit. This is just my silly lil idea, its probly filled with flaws left right and center,

Example: you walk into walmart, go to camping desk, hand your win card, ask for 3 jack tags, 5 perch, chashier scans your card, gives you tags, you pay 5 dollar per jack, 2 per perch and your on your way fishing.

I can really appreciate your sentiment about the conservation of AB fisheries.

However, these posts where one complains about people keeping fish, complains about how poor the reg's are, and then suggests management techniques to fix the perceived problems... are rather pointless.

If you want to make your voice heard and not just complain on the interweb, write and phone all of the government employees and representatives that can make a difference.

I'm continually surprised by the number of guys who voice similar thoughts here, but clearly have never used the appropriate avenues.

Apologies in advance for how harshly this may have come across.

no thats fair, i just wanna think of what other people think. I dont think its a waste of time. if I get enough support, raise awarness of my idea (if its good lol), mabey i can change some minds (drink the coolaid!). if i get enough support i will email this to people who can make the diff

Not harsh!! Just the start of a good debate before it goes sideways on here. I always thought it would be a good idea to pay per fish kept. BUT, I'm also one of those guys that thinks a trip to the emergency with a sore throat should cost a few greenies.

Dodger.

Would never happen on all species in all lakes province wide. It is already in effect for certain lakes on 1 species, but is a draw system not a walk into walmart(example reused) and buy tags system.

If you follow the math through, (I will use non-factual figures as I'm to lazy to look up real numbers but you'll get the drift) if a lake holds 20'000 spawning pike(50/50 sex split), and on average each pike lays 10'000 eggs (10k*10k = 100mil) , and 60% of those eggs get fertilized (60mil) and through the course of incubation half of the eggs get eatin (30mil) and only 1% of the hatching fry make it to fingerling stage, that is still 300k fingerlings in the lake to grow. Tack on a another 1% survival rate to sexual maturity and you still have 3000 fish reaching maturity.

Pike was a bad example as they actually lay 100k eggs. (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish/northern/biology.html) But the message is still there.

I think there should be a Draw system for Cold Lake Lake Trout, with maybe 1000 issued a year. :fighting0074:

If you want tags, go to the alberta relm website and apply. Already in existence for walleye at certain lakes. Tags for pike and perch, that's a good one...

Whats the hurry? Tag system is already in use(no need to blanket the province with tags just yet). "Fisheries" bios, will adjust limits and regs as needed. While I keep very few fish, there are others that enjoy eating fish. Monitor and adjust limits as needed.




Wait, they are doing that too.:)
:)

I don't think your crazy. If you have a band wagon Im hopping on it. A province wide tag system IMO would likely be the best solution to over fishing and over harvest and i wouldn't be surprised if a similar system is implemented in my lifetime. It would be great for monitoring legal harvests. Maybe our fisheries might actually have some money then. Actually the government would probably funnel it off to something else dealing with increasing oil and gas drilling, in an already stretched thin work force with no skilled labour left.

As for using the money for stocking. Government stocking is expensive and the amount of dollars it costs to say get a few hundred thousand fry in a lake would be better off spent elsewhere IMO. Let me put it this way. Twenty or thirty large fish, say trophy fish, you know the real breeders would do 10 times the amount of stocking if they were left in a lake to breed, and protected by say a slot size regulation. Zero harvest of trophy fish has a few perks.

1. It costs what ever the extra ink costs in the regs, and it likely saves the province on stocking,

2. If the lake is suitable it increases an anglers chances of catching trophy fish and even with incidental mortality it is likely that more than one person will enjoy a trophy fish rather than just one.

3. More large fish means more spawn, which hopefully means the fish fill a natural ecological niche, not always the case though,

3. Having an over abundance of large above slot size fish that can breed and are eating too much of the feed in a lake is a cheaper fix than not having any fish left bredders or other wise. You just issue a small number tags for the oversized class and then those guys who love soggy big fish can happily chomp away on the fish that will have the most heavy metals out of any fish in the lake. Good bye reproductive health, gotta love biomagnification.

great post.


One of the greatest challenges/failures in fisheries and environmental management in general is mitigating cumulative effects/impacts.

A slot limit will fail if fishing pressure is too high.

Each lake, given it's ecology can only produce so much biomass on an annual basis.

The only way to manage this is to recognize that a lake can only produce so much biomass (kg) per year and then regulate the biomass harvest.

If a lake produces 1000kg of walleye per year once the population is stable, a sustainable harvest of 800kg (which takes into account mortality and other factors) may be possible.

800kg would be 600 - 0.5kg fish, 300 - 1kg fish, 50 - 2kg fish and 20 - 5kg fish.

This would equal 970 tags for a such a lake while enabling the harvest of good table fare and a handful of trophy walleye.

Slot limits, size limits and other regs have no way to stop unsustainable harvest because they do not take into account the productivity of the lake, and identify a limit related to that tolerance.

This is especially true under the intense fishing pressure in AB.

Is that not the entire point of a forum? To generate, share, and discuss various opinions, achievements, failures, frustrations, ideas, etc....

I agree that in order for something to come from these discussions, more is needed than just talk. However, I would greatly disagree that such discussions are "pointless".

Sounds like you know more than the average Joe. You do fisheries work or just enjoy reading/learning?

As for sustainable harvest If i remember correctly what i was told by our local bio. When the SRD is able to do assessments to determine annual bio mass and sustainable harvest, and decide the number of fish they allow to be taken by tags, or not taken. It is less than half the sustainable harvest because illegal harvest and incidental mortality is often larger than legal harvest.

I can believe that fishing mortality, poaching, summer/winter kill could consume a considerable portion of the annual harvest.

No fisheries work yet, just a biologist and obsessive (fisherman).

What I was getting at was that having 5 threads on the same topic and a couple other multipage lambastings/arguments are rather pointless, when you consider that of those 100 individuals, few if any are communicating their very serious concerns through useful channels and to those individuals that can effect some change.

Proximate: "I can't believe you kept dat fish arrrrghhhhh"

Ultimate: "Dear Minister ___, I have very serious concerns about..."

The idea of conserving or resources, comendable, I fish and hunt, so do my daughters,
we take what we can use from time to time, but not all the time.

I listen to people who have the luxury of spare time out fishing 3 to 4 times a week, seems they are always catching a pile when they go out, funny thing is these people are the first to mention how are resources are being decimated. It laughable.

I will not stand idyly by and watch someone poach, I will get involved, I have got involved and will continue to do so as to protect OUR resource.

I think that its a good idea and theyd make an even bigger profit off the poaching fines due to so many people not agreeing to buy their fish tags plus especialy when we cant enforce everyone to have to buy them alotta people would be exempt from having to pay which would make the ones who do a little uneasy if ya gotta pay to keep a fish me personally id buy it from the supermarket cuz ya gotta clean it and transport it im sure would ultimately stop people from keeping fish alltogether not everyone but some

give me a break, so instead of me keeping my 1 fish limit, now u wanna bring it down to uummm...1/2 a fish? u get the point. fish tags...:angry3:

another thing to ponder..........all the catch and release fishing, how many of those fish actually survive?? i pretty certain alot dont, if u want to save the fish...quit fishing, simple as that.

Wouldn't using money from the sale of existing tags to stock fingerlings and stopping the commercial fishing be a better idea:angry3: Has the world gone mad?

I'm in favor of a tag system for ALL fish in AB.

Thanks for posting beeguy!
I would agree.

It can and does.

if you think of the extra funding it would generate, more money to hire "experts" or people to look into those problems..

i dont think hiring more "experts" would solve any problems.

You have data to support this?

I believe its part of the "formula" used by SRD

What formula?

Please please please dont pursue this madness.

Dont we already have enough to pay for...and fishing gear aint cheap either.
And neither is the gas it costs to get there and back.
There are better ways to pursue fish conservation than pulling on our wallets some more more more.

Hide this thread b4 some gov't official see's it and gets another drastic idea.

My gift to you:
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^Those little dots? They're periods. Put a couple of 'em in your posts, so I can stop & catch my breath every now & then while reading what you've written. :)

Hahahahaha....now this is a very witty post.
Nice job sir

Interesting idea. This makes sense to me. But is it possible to know or measure how much biomass a lake produces each year? Do you know if this method of regulating harvests is actually used anywhere successfully?

Not to my knowledge in AB.


AFAIK in AB we:

1.Test net a lake
2. Determine population structure
3. Determine population based on the standardized 'effort' used in 1.
4. Increase retention or reduce retention based on 2. and 3.

maybe, just maybe, do a couple replicates if we have the time/money


If you want to learn about fisheries management you can start HERE