Being a baby boomer, I started my fishing life in the '60's in what should have been the good old days. Back then roads were being built to new lakes and streams every year,,, and everybody flocked the new lake to fill their boat with pickeral and pike. And by golly,,, the fishing certainly was good the first year or two,,, but with the high limits it was not sustainable even back then. By the 3rd and 4th year the size and catch rates started dropping off dramatically.
But it didn't matter, there was always another new road going into another new lake and the cycle would repeat itself,,, that is until the late 70's / early 80's most of the lakes and streams had road access and there were no more new ones to exploit.
You also have to remember that prior to 1975, average annual precipitation was much higher. Starting in the late 70's much of Alberta went into a significant drying trend with multiple drought years up to about 2010. The 30 year average annual precipitation from 1980 to 2010 was in many areas such as NB1, was 25-33% less than the 30 years prior to 1975.
Lower annual precipitation meant lower inflows and outflows resulting in declining lake levels. Combine lower flows / lower lake levels with increased industrial, cottage and agricultural development (and beavers too, which believe it not, were quite scarce in the 60's), is it any wonder the rate of eutrophication increases as well.
Plain and simply put, a lot of our lakes need more water and with that more inflow and outflow (water exchange). The past couple of years have helped several lakes like Moose,,, but as others have pointed out, we will likely need many years of above average precip to bring back lakes like Mann and Muriel. It would definitely help those lakes if can we can ensure that the natural watercourses are not being diverted or blocked.
All that said, as much as we bitch about our current fishing regulations, the truth is they are far more sustainable than any thing we had prior to 1998. Despite all the habitat problems on many lakes, if they are deep enough to avoid winter and summerkill, catch rates are likely much higher than they were back in the 80's and early 90's. In the past few years I catch more fish per day than I did as a youth / young man. I also catch more large pike over 40" in lakes I can drive to now than I did in all the years I fished prior to the year 2000 combined!!!!
Yes, we can do better in the reg department,,, we still have issues with size and species distribution in a lot of lakes, but the good old days weren't really that good compared to what have now!!!!
|