[smitty9]

Cow Lake.

In it's "heyday" (late 70's or 80's depending when you fished it), it produced trout upwards of 15 pounds. Rick (or Roger?) Crozier even had a tiger beetle pattern for that lake.

Fished it this past Saturday; I am mildly impressed. Rainbows averaged 3.5 pounds, not one under 3. A few pike.

Which fascinates me, because I don't remember in the 40 years of fishing this province where F&W or AEP or the ACA or any whatever organization embraced the stocking of trout in a lake (slough) where there is a viable pike population.

Now trout and pike co-existing is not unheard of, of course. One only needs to look at Lake Diefenbaker in Sask to see that possibility of pike-trout co-existence to the nth degree (30 pound trout).

But not here in Alberta.

So I am curious as to why AEP chose to dump some browns and rainbows (hey, let's get some tigers in there too!!) in Cow. And we're not talking about a few hundred brood stock either; its close to 246,000 trout in 2021 and 2022 alone (combined).

AEP must think that total "bombardment flood" of trout - including some in bigger sizes - might be enough for them to establish a foothold, and so pike won't eat /get them all. Maybe; it's one of Alberta's bigger stocked trout lakes, but it ain't no Diefenbaker!

From my perspective, it marks quite a significant change in fish stocking philosophy of AEP. Of course, this could be a one off experiment.
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Anyways, fishing wasn't that 'fast'. 8 fish hooked, 3 to the boat. Small spoons and rapalas caught the rainbows. I caught the pike on a fly setup (the "Lauder" rig, lol).

Have no idea as to the status of the brown trout or perch. I do know, that do to frequent winterkills, at one time Cow only had minnows. Then trout, then pike and perch, now both.

We'll see; this will be interesting!

I'd go while the getting is good. Shore anglers on Saturday - close to 30 of them - are taking their 5 trout a day limit (though most only caught a handful, but given the chance...).
Don't know why...buddy said the trout tasted like mud....

Smitty