Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Bullets
There is talk of how walleye have changed and 'unbalanced ' the lakes. Interestingly lakes that do not have walleye have also changed.
An example is Wizard lake, a small pothole lake southwest of Edmonton. (It could be any similar lake in Alberta though.) Wizard is a spring fed lake that has always had northern pike, burbot, perch and suckers. Back around the turn of 1900 the settlers mentioned they caught many pike in a few hours and most averaged 6 to 8 lbs. a few over 10 lbs. When I fished there in the early 1960's the average pike I would catch was 4 to 6 lbs. Easy to catch many in a day. Biggest I know caught in the 60's was 21 lbs. Now the average size of a pike is maybe a pound or two. You might catch a 10+ lb. pike once in a lifetime there now. The perch have remained consistent. The immense minnow populations are still there. Years ago people that caught lingcod left them on the ice by the dozens. Now there aren't as many lingcod to compete with the pike.
What would explain this size reduction in many lakes? It can't be just over fishing or the walleye.
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Not saying it is so but just one possible explanation of what you are seeing is actually an over population of the pike and stunting. They had larger limits back then which would have thinned the pike population down leaving more forage for each pike remaining. This would lead to much faster growth and larger size for those that did not get caught and retained.
Certainly I am not advocating returning to the huge limits of the past but a lack of harvesting also has effects.