Quote:
Originally Posted by GustavMahler
So,,, my dad and I pulled out some old regs and whitefish from the sheep were a limit of 15 and possesion 30. The generation/harvest was equal to the current population of fisherfolk,, in otherwords 50,000 fishers got to pull/harvest more than 240,000 fisherfolk today.
As for the Sheep river, I'm sure there are plenty on here who remember the river charcoal grey from bank to bank for miles on end with rockies in september and october. I tell this often to the youngins but they just roll their eyes. WE DEPLETED THE RUNS DUE TO POOR REGULATIONS AND WITHOUT FACTORING IN POPULATION/DENSITY/PRESSURE ON THOSE LAKES AND STREAMS.
|
Nice example Gustav. This has been a source of pain in our system for a long while. Rockies (mountain whitefish) have been punished with harsh limits purely as a way of trying to decimate the population...intentionally. F&W for years saw them through biased glasses and poor science as a competitor that ruined trout populations. They have however evolved with native cutts and bulls and in fact are a very important food source for them...necessary for bulls and cutts to grow large.
I don't think we can ever recover from the damage done...but I would love to see a moratorium on retaining whitefish for about 5 years to try and recover their populations.
I also say that the road to proper recovery for many foothills populations is using some form of nutritional supplements to the water until some of the lost biomass recovers also.
Cheers
Sun