I find this thread very disturbing. First off, there is no need to be arrogant; some people just have no idea about the impact we can have very quickly on the shallow lakes we have in southern Alberta, and some may have been educated poorly by their mentor.
First, I grew up fishing Jacks in southern Alberta and love eating winter Jacks. They are great, and I would love to eat some right now, but I ate it all already.
There does need to be different restrictions placed on the Jack stocks in Alberta, as there are lakes that were fantastic 15 years ago that are pathetic remnants of what they were now. The first I would mention would be Keho. It was by far the best lake to catch a couple 10lbs + fish in a day through ice back then, and we did it regularly. Unfortunately we (my grandfather, his friends and I) didn't understand the simple things, and we often kept a full limit of 10 a piece and not one would be under 8lbs. I remember our best day on the ice, we had 15 fish between 12 and 16lbs and 2 over 20lbs. I even pulled a 6lb Whitefish through the ice on a smelt. We through back a ton of fish in the 4-8lb category, and if we had known we would have kept our limit in this range and tossed the real breeders back down the hole.
I fished Clear the last few years and when we started it was amazing, we kept a few in the 4 to 6lb range and ate very well. I haven't been out this year, but I would believe what most people I know are telling me: it has been destroyed compared to what it was 5 years ago.
I am not a C&R fanatic; I like to eat it too. And you can stuff your chemical pollution garbage. Do you eat feedlot beef, canned tuna, canned salmon, Lilydale chickens? I'd rather eat pond fish thanks.
There are lots of things they could do, like slot limits. Yearly limits on fish (when you buy your license every year, you get your 20 pike tags, 25 trout tags, 30 whitefish tags, 40 perch tags, or whatever numbers are reasonable).
Increase enforcement, would be the first great start.
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