It is a textbook example of a gene pool that goes back to the days of the gold rush that produces large pike that grew fast because of the whitefish population and available forage. When that gets disrupted by the introduction of millions of secondary predators that instantly wipe out any fry of the pike and whites and perch not to mention the minnows and basically anything that swims, your fishery collapses due to the gross imbalance. Where and when in our alberta lakes would our existing walleye have 10 MILLION offspring that make it thru to fingerling or beyond in a single years spawn? Never. When the minnows were thick in our fertile lakes next thing you know the perch would have a couple good spawns....okay lots of small perch around all of a sudden... whammy...every where you go on shore there's baby pike darting out of the shallow weeds. Walleyes never were super abundant for a reason. Not overfishin, it was because the lake could only handle so many, so mother nature decided if our lakes could handle the ultimate predator (walleye). Not many could which was why we had good pike, whitefish, and perch lakes despite the large limits. You had year classes that were strong and weak for obvious reasons. Drought etc. Someone way smarter than mother nature took it upon themselves to introduce a huge amount of fish at the wrong time and plain and simple the fish are starved out. That's why they don't reproduce worth a dang because the fry dont have a hope in hell. I've been booted off this forum for voicing my opinion on this matter. Saskatchewan fishery managers claim higher limits actually boost recruitment because of abundant forage....if there's a bunch of food then mother nature will balance herself with strong year classes. Either you get it or you don't. If you weren't here in the 70's and 80's to see what wabamun and pigeon and sylvan and gull never mind the bonnyville area was like, you don't have a horse in this race.
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