[Waxy]

Originally Posted by Winch101

I fished with Gary Roach a few times back in the 70's and 80's He told me about a trip they made out to the NE states to fish the columbia river . The local farmers were pitchforking walleyes out of the spawning creeks to use as fertilizer . They were considered a rough fish competing with the salmon . So beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder ...

That's amazing. Hard to believe it even happened, but I'm sure it did. I wonder if the walleye fishery has recovered there at all?

I believe in a C&R Lake , You kill to many fish lindy rigging .
to many swallowed hooks . Put a bait and treble hook ban on
some of these , good C&R lakes . That will seperate the wheat from the chaff . Then you would be mostly trolling , all those 2 strokes would have
to go ...not GREEN enough .

I agree with you on the problems of lindy rigging. It's the biggest reason why I rarely use the tactic when on CV or when a lake is strictly C&R.

However, I don't agree with you on the bait ban. For techniques like jigging and bottom bouncing with spinners, the presence of live bait really doesn't effect fish mortality one way or another. The only difference would be the increased numbers of fish being caught due to the bait, not mortality caused by the bait itself as with a lindy rig.

All that a bait ban would do is decrease the success of ALL anglers on these lakes, some may argue that's a good thing, I wouldn't. Fishing success and enjoyment is what creates the motivation to preserve these lakes and provides the source of funding to continue to do so. If you take away the average person's ability to catch fish, or make doing so very expensive because they need a box full of crankbaits and a rig capable of extended trolling, you decrease the number of fishermen, and therefore decrease the resources available of fisheries management.

For many anglers, myself included, trolling is far from the preferred method of fishing. I think it would be unfortunate to force people into certain types of fishing or lures due to a bait ban. Four stroke or two stroke (which by the way, the new 2 strokes are every bit as "green" as the four strokes), it just means more hydrocarbons being burned and there's more traffic on the lakes. Not a good idea in my books. Forcing a switch to crankbaits and other multi-hook lures also doesn't seem like a good alternative to me.

If you wonder how slow the wheels turn . They have been trying to ban live bait in Manitoba since 1968 and its still not done ....

Who is they? I've never heard of this before.

I for one would strongly oppose any form of a bait ban on Alberta's lakes.

Waxy