Quote:
Originally Posted by KegRiver
That is talking about things before I was born. Around 1930. Shortly after Louise died believe.
Dad moved to Keg River about that time and reported the same sort of thing.
Cool reading it in Franks own words.
I don't know about Kakisa but I'm sure i would have been the same.
Of interest, it seemed to me the big decline in the Peace River started when they built the Bennett Dam.
I guess it depends on one's prospective what a generous limit is. I wouldn't call this years limits generous. 3, 3, 10, doesn not sound great to me.
It was 5, 10,10 a few years ago. And the Grayling limit is 0 even though no one has been targeting them fo over 50 years that I know of.
Even so Grayling are closed to angling throughout NB3.
Clearly something is very wrong and it's not anglers that are the cause.
The Peace River system gets a fraction the fishing pressure that the Bow, the Red Deer and the North Saskatchiwin get and yet out fish stocks are way lower. Our rivers are closed for seven months of the year, the Bow is only closed for two months, the Red Deer is closed for five months and the North Saskatchwin is closed for five months. This is for the lower sections which harbor the same species as the Peace River.
I see one big differance between the southren rivers and the Peace River.
There are three big pulp mills on the Peace system and none I know of on the southern rivers. Whether that has anything to do with it I don't know.
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I concur the Bennett Dam being a factor. I also agree that oil and gas in the headwaters along with pulp mills being detrimental to fish stocks and that there are less fish in the river system now compared to long ago. How many fewer fish??? I have no idea. In the 80's there were only a few locals who fished the popular spots around here like the mouth of the Boyer River, Caribou River, or wabasca rivers and the limit was 5 walleye then like you mentioned.
Nowadays the boat launch is very busy. Saturday morning I thought I would sneak out and catch my breakfast I was at the dock before 7. I was the second boat there and two others launched after me while I waited 10 minutes for my fishing partner to show up. We caught our limit of walleye and I imagine everyone else caught fish too. There are a lot more people fishing up north here than ever before.
I saw a small barge about two weeks ago Heading to carcajou from the ferry landing. There were at minimum 12 children and 4 adults; each carried a fishing rod.
Back in the 60's and 70's as you know, there were many more people who lived, travelled and relied on the River. Many of them also kept dogs. Legal and illegal netting and trapping of fish was common on the River system at that time and tons of fish were caught and used every year and yet the River never seem to run out of fish. Nowadays we need to do things differently in order to ensure healthy fish stocks. Maybe it is as simple as removing one dam and shutting down three pulp mills?
Chad