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Old 07-24-2020, 08:10 PM
wind drift wind drift is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: YEG
Posts: 716
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Quote:
Originally Posted by buckman View Post
If you open only one or two lakes for fish retention they will get pressured by anglers who like to eat a fish or two.

Surely its better to open up more lakes that hold good numbers of Walleye and Pike to a limit of one of each with a slot size.

Its seems to me at least, that Walleye do have an impact on forage fish like Whitefish and Perch in most lakes they have been stocked in.

This in turn affects the amount of food for Pike. Result seems to be stunted Walleye and skinny Pike.
I think we have a warped perspective on natural abundance of fish and species interactions. We have no idea what our lakes were like pre-settlement. Everything we think we know about our fish comes from a time of exploitation, in many cases spectacular overharvest, and forced recovery. In theory, why would species that have coexisted since the glaciers receded not coexist now? We fully protect walleye in many lakes for 20-plus years while still allowing harvest of pike, then wonder why there are more walleye than pike...and then proceed to blame the walleye for the situation, or cormorants, or dry years, or comets, or demonic intrusion, etc. I think we have to be objective and consider that most of what our fisheries are today is due to us, and most of what we know is based on untestable observations, stories and stories about stories.
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