2018 fishing regs??
 

Hi all,
Just wondering when the new regs and walleye draw information is coming out?
Thanks in advance

The new regs are usually out by mid march but I assume they had to modify them because of the late changes to the river closures.

Considering they take affect April 1st they should be made available soon at least online.

Really hope they get something sorted out quick. I've got a lot of plans to be fishing well into April.

received email today from relm regs are up .

License for 2018 available, but regs not up yet.

They're out now.

Their up //https://mywildalberta.ca/fishing/regulations/default.aspx

I stand corrected, checked wrong site.:sign0161::sign0176:

Hard to make sense of that chart but looks to me that utikema and rock island are done for walleye.

That new chart is stupid. Way harder to read.

Think they missed the South Saskatchewan River.

Done fer now, look again tomorrow.

Sorry guys better link now from my laptop phone sucked....https://mywildalberta.ca/fishing/reg...s/default.aspx

I like it.

I think the new chart is crap.

Not a fan of the chat but I will get used to it. Not like I have a choice lol.

I like the new format! Makes it waaay easier to see what fish species are present and find special regs.

:happy0034: to the chart. Way easier to interpret IMHO. I also like that Pike are now getting as much attention as Walleye in terms of closures and limits in recent years.

Look out saskatchewan....here we come! Get those filleting knives sharpened up and the cast iron frying pan seasoned.

Regs haven't gotten any simpler, that is for sure,,,

Increased protection for pike may help some of the protected lakes recover and perhaps grow larger pike in the next few years ,,, but lakes with harvest will still likely see population declines as angling harvest pressure shifts towards the open waterbodies.

Varying minimum size limits between "open for harvest lakes" will likely increase angler confusion and non-compliance.

Overall, the prospect of reasonable opportunities to catch larger pike in more lakes in Alberta has me rather excited about the next few years and I have to applaud that , but I am concerned that we are going to be sacrificing other lakes to achieve this.

I am fine for protecting populations and changing regs over time but all of this work seems to be taking place from Central Alberta north. The Southern reservoirs (which are full of pike and walleye) are subject to a blanket zero retention. As such, I have to agree with the previous comment - head to Saskatchewan if you want to eat a fish. Can't F&W try some more innovative ideas between 3 over 63 and zero. How about rotating reservoirs with a limit of 1 in the specified reservoir and the others zero retention or issuing 10 tags with each license to be used on specified reservoirs at a rate of 1 per week. Try opening for retention of 1 fish 2 days per month. I find it amazing that on a body like Crawling Valley where the catch rate is about 1 per 10 minutes or less that there is absolutely no available harvest. And last year they dropped the number of class A tags for Newell in half. Sorry for the rant but its back to Tobin again.

A couple of good articles by DR Sullivan,,,, particularly The Carrot Hypothesis

Anglers pushing for slots should take note that slots with out restrictions on total harvest within the allowed slot likely will not work with Alberta's high angling pressure. The Amisk Lake experiment with slots certainly shows that,,, There are several other lakes where slots have been tried and results have been the same he could have mentioned as well (Fork Lake for one).

Lake whitefish and burbot limits are way too high.

Agree.

Should also note to anglers "a prussian carp no limit", keep all you want page.

Yes!

I have no problem catching 50+ walleye a night in the summer, of all sizes. From 6” to 28” in a night. At least put some tags on the southern reservoirs.

Of course slots with no limit within slot wouldnt work... That seems like a no brainer...

Just like when you ask bios about slots and they say they tried reverse slots in the past and they didnt work... Duh...

Slots have worked well on the lakes that they have tried it on. So what do they do about the slot limits working on those lakes? They changed it away from slots of course...

If its not broken change it... Must be one of fisheries mottos based on some of their decisions...

......:)

No kidding. If I can catch 30 walleye from shore in an evening, I think the lake can spare a 16in walleye. Tags at a minimum.

Please tell me which lakes had slots that worked?

Who said had no limit within them, there were still low daily limits applied, there just was no measures put in place to ensure that the overall harvest within the slot size was restricted to "X" number which is what tags can accomplish.

you did.

Calling and Spencer both have healthy populations covering numerous age classes due to slot limits in recent years. I cant wait to see the next netting data for Spencer now that they switched to minimum size instead of slot. It will probably be fairly obvious that slot was a better choice and that they should have left the regs alone.

I dont think as highly of the tag system as some others do. It has hurt a number of our lakes by wiping out competing species and simply put they dont have the data to micromanage these lakes properly especially on some of these more remote lakes they are starting/wanting to implement tags on.

I think it can be of value in our very high pressure lakes close to the cities like say Pigeon but that is all. Slot limits make more sense then minimum size limits on almost all other lakes yet our fisheries refuses to implement them and always comes up with crazy arguments as to why they dont work, most of which make zero sense.