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Old 12-22-2010, 04:31 PM
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Sundancefisher Sundancefisher is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Calgary Perchdance
Posts: 18,775
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rellum View Post
The fishery in upper kananaskis was ruined when they introduced the bull trout. It would be nice if this province would get off this bull trout fetish. I use to take my boys,scouts etc. every winter up there and we were able to catch a reasonable sized fish using bait.
It does not matter what you guys do, the cutthroats and rainbows will never reach 50cm with the bull trouts around.
Basically there is no lake that can be easiy reach that offers what upper kananaskis did. The majority of the stocked lakes the fish are small and taste like mud.
Thanks guys for ruining a perfectly good fishery any more lakes you want to ruin with your bull trout garbage?
Actually I think you may be leaping to judgments based upon a misunderstanding of the facts.

The reason the rainbow trout fishing went down hill is because F&W stopped stocking. They actually did a study that showed the tax payers were paying $10 for every $1 they got back in fish. The system was just not working. Further study showed stocking small rainbows did not work because they could just not compete with the mountains of suckers in the lakes. The bull trout were there for a long time and the rainbows did get big...if they could find food. The bull trout recovery program was designed to help the population recover and at the same time help cull the tons of suckers. That seems to have helped.

Now the plan is to grow big rainbows to catch. We know they can grow big because they do currently...there just are not many around because there is a tiny spawning population that adds a few individuals every year. A new stocking program of larger rainbows...which will be allowed to grow to 20 inches before harvest will be a net benefit...and catching big fish is fun!

chubdarter...

There are no special interest groups with any power in Alberta. We are fairly spineless as a group. Currently regulations are managed based upon the population, species, location etc. Regulations to protect the fishery and to prevent over harvest or exploitation or damage are for your benefit. Anarchy and chaos and a free for all would not improve the fishery and I hope you can see that. Ice fishing in some situations makes harvest way to easy and in effect all the fish could be removed taking away any recreational potential for the ensuing year. They have to balance harvest with population and fishing pressure.

Bait fishing while fine...I do it a lot...also has consequences. If you catch your limit then go home...that is fine from one point of view...but if 1000 more people show up...then a month later you come back to fish and are ticked off there is nothing left. Plus someone else may keep putting back injured trout hoping for a bigger one or just passing time till the end of the day...meanwhile they take 5 home...but baiting fishing method killed 25 more after they bled to death.

You feel that catching more bigger fish and keeping one large fish is against your rights as a tax payer...but from a value perspective you are ahead. Maybe you are just generalizing but realizing the numbers of fishermen are increasing...keeping enough fish in the water for everyone to enjoy is as you can imagine a juggling trick. As a recreational sport for everyone to enjoy...creating better fisheries close to large populations just makes sense IMHO. You are trying to link a 20 inch rainbow to a trophy lake...but sorry I don't call 20 inch stocked rainbows a trophy...

In the end...I love seeing grandpa...sitting in a lawn chair...enjoying retirement...waiting for his bell to ring and eat a trout...but behind every story there is a process to get you there. Trout don't grow on trees and their is not an endless supply. We have to manage what we have for everyone and if you see what happens at Maclean Pond or Mt Lorette Ponds...you will see the frutility of endorsing standard stock and leave fisheries. They get fished out in 2 weeks. Grandpa can park his butt in a lawnchair for all of August and never see a bite...that is sad.
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