Quote:
Originally Posted by wind drift
I think we have a warped perspective on natural abundance of fish and species interactions. We have no idea what our lakes were like pre-settlement. Everything we think we know about our fish comes from a time of exploitation, in many cases spectacular overharvest, and forced recovery. In theory, why would species that have coexisted since the glaciers receded not coexist now? We fully protect walleye in many lakes for 20-plus years while still allowing harvest of pike, then wonder why there are more walleye than pike...and then proceed to blame the walleye for the situation, or cormorants, or dry years, or comets, or demonic intrusion, etc. I think we have to be objective and consider that most of what our fisheries are today is due to us, and most of what we know is based on untestable observations, stories and stories about stories.
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Pre settlement the lakes were quite different. Examples...Places like Gull lake never had whitefish before the 1930's. Not sure about Sylvan. Sylvan has a small strain of whites. Pigeon originally had the same small whites. In the 30's a fellow suggested stocked pigeon lake with a bigger strain of whitefish. The original strain of pigeon lake's whites only grew to 2 lbs. while the new strain grew to 4. The same whitefish strain was then taken from Pigeon lake to stock Gull lake with whites.
Fish stocking goes way back. Looking at stocking lists from the last hundred years it is pretty revealing. The lists don't say which lakes but just give numbers.
So... The span between 1926 and 1952 over 30 million walleye were stocked in the province. During that same time period only 2.7 million northern pike were stocked. And 2.7 million of those pike were stocked between 1951 and 1955. In the last 30 years only 6,442 pike were stocked. And Just between 2006 and 2012 over 180 million walleye were stocked.
http://www.abll.ca/tables/Fish/Fish_Stocking
I think I see the imbalance. Could be the reason you just don't see as many pike anymore. Could it be the province is stocking so many walleye as a fish eating bird feeding program maybe?