Bonkers
I agree with Bear Ballz, killing a trophy pike, walleye, etc in this province may very well be legal, but it is probably going to be detremental to the fishery.For those of you who say the F/W have implemented the keep limits so it must be okay, take a look at the restrictions that are now in place because of the F/W mis-management of our fishery. You can not ignore the facts. Keep limits for walleye and pike in a majority of lakes are now zero because large keep limits (by sport and commercial anglers) were left in place far too long and restocking programs were terminated. The SRD agrees that walleye have been the most popular game species in this province for years but terminated all walleye stocking from 1999-to 2006, and now only stock 2 lakes per year, is this good management. I will agree some of the walleye fisheries are rebounding, but did you know that some of these lakes have had a zero limit for 10 years and some for 13 years. Is it good management to let a lake decline to such a level that it takes 10-13 years for it to recover? I belonged to a fishing club in 1988 that started lobbying F/W to start reducing walleye limits (they were 10/day then) because we could see as well as a lot of others what was happening, we were totally ignored.
At a public forum approx 12-15 years ago I believe, when F/W was introducing there plan for implementing catch and release for walleye on a large number of lakes in the province, a regular member of this board stood up and asked what sort of restrictions were they going to implement for pike. The Rep for the government at the time said "well no restrictions" we have more pike in this province than we know what to do with. The member then asked "well what do you think is going to happen when people cant keep walleye, do you not think they are going to keep pike instead. This comment was ignored, and well you all know what happened to the pike population over the next few years.
I will agree that F/W has done some good things with our fishery. The main point I am trying to make is be very carefull with putting your faith in the fishery management decisions that are being made, history has proven that some of these decisions probably put some of our fisheries back 15 years, and some may never recover. Let me be very clear, I am not questioning the decisions that our biologists,techs and F/W officers make but the decisions there bosses have made and are making now.
Anglers are extremely efficeint today, with sonars, super lines, GPS, trolling motors etc., compared to 15 or even 10 years ago. With the increasing population in this province and the skill and knowledge anglers have achieved, I believe also comes the responsiblity to adopt a catch and release philosophy ourselves, regardless of what the law allows. You may disagree with the release part of fishing, but if we do not start releasing more fish in a few years the "catch" part of the option for some species may no longer be there.
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