Quote:
Originally Posted by goldscud
The problem with taking the smaller fish is that essentially none are left to get over 20". Commonly there are very few fish over 16" in lakes with a 5 fish/no size limit. You can see it at Bullshead. Any fish approaching 20" is bonked on the head and removed. No matter what the legal size limit is, a huge majority of the fish that reach that size are removed. The number of fish that escape the freezer to remain as "quality" trout is very low.
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Good point Goldscud. But what if you made the regs read 5 fish with a maximum size of 16". The fish that are left in the lake and make it past the legal keep size of +16" stay in the lake until they die of natural causes. Over time, there would be more and more big fish in the lake to catch.
The anglers, like me or people with kids, that like to go out and catch some smaller fish to keep and eat are happy and the trophy anglers that just want to catch a big fish to take a picture of should be happy. Everyone wins and no one has to give up anything!
The only people that I can see as not being happy are the anglers that want easy to catch and keep big fish. To them I say.....Too bad!
If you want easy then join the Marines and if you want to eat big fish then go to the fish market! Smaller sized fish taste better anyway!
I know that I'm joking around a bit and my thinking is totally outside the box from what goes on in Alberta right now, but, really, does any of what I'm posting make sense to anyone?
It's just an idea but great plans are developed from the smallest of ideas.