Cold lake open water season 2024.

[CBintheNorth]

Originally Posted by -JR-

I agree , as soon as a fish hits 65 cm its going to get taken,just like what happened a few years ago . I would rather see that lake full of 65 and bigger fish just so a guy can go to a lake and catch nothing but big fish all day .
That would really put Cold lake on the map .
Right now we don't need the smaller size fish 55-60.
In one year ,that lake will be fished out of lakers 65-70 .
All the bigger fish 70 and up will just get netted out .

The 65-70 was chosen as studies done show that lake trout of that size in Cold Lake have had an opportunity to spawn 1-2 times.

[-JR-]

Originally Posted by CBintheNorth

The 65-70 was chosen as studies done show that lake trout of that size in Cold Lake have had an opportunity to spawn 1-2 times.

This is why they should not remove them from the lake .
Leave the breeders alone .Take the much smaller fish as they taste better as 58thecat said .
I have been fishing this lake for over 40 years . Only 10% of the fish are over 65 cm .
My normal catch on a 8 hrs trip is around 50 fish . Only 4- 5 of those fish are over 65 cm . And now they want to remove them from the lake . I heard nothing about them doing a catch survey whats in that lake . They just asked the public to vote what size they would like to bring home .

They should not even take out the fish 60 and over .
The best slot size should be 55 -60 .
This way more fish will come up every year to be harvested and at the same time the fishermen will have more fun catching bigger fish all day that they can release.

[Mad_On_Fishing]

although i completely agree with taking the smaller fish for most species, i do somewhat agree with the larger limit size requirements on cold lake and now pierce lake.

The successful release rate for larger lake trout is quite low with many anglers not knowing how to properly handle them (i see all too many people picking up 15+lb's by the gills and weighing the fish by the gills as well, not knowing how to burp the fish and i see their fish belly up 4 minutes later 100' away from where it was released.

Education is definitely key in this matter to help increase the successful release rate of these fish and ensure they live 40+ more years breeding monsters.

[mlee]

Originally Posted by -JR-

This is why they should not remove them from the lake .
Leave the breeders alone .Take the much smaller fish as they taste better as 58thecat said .
I have been fishing this lake for over 40 years . Only 10% of the fish are over 65 cm .
My normal catch on a 8 hrs trip is around 50 fish . Only 4- 5 of those fish are over 65 cm . And now they want to remove them from the lake . I heard nothing about them doing a catch survey whats in that lake . They just asked the public to vote what size they would like to bring home .

They should not even take out the fish 60 and over .
The best slot size should be 55 -60 .
This way more fish will come up every year to be harvested and at the same time the fishermen will have more fun catching bigger fish all day that they can release.

I agree the slot should be smaller .....55-60cm would be perfect. That said we have completely different results when we fish Cold lake. If we put 50 fish in the boat....30 of them are between 65-75cm.....a couple over 75 and the rest are usually high 50 to low 60. This past tournament we didn't catch a single fish smaller than 60cm and 75% of our fish were over 65cm. 65-70cm is almost always the high average of fish landed.

[-JR-]

Do you even fish that lake much .Saying "The successful release rate for larger lake trout is quite low ." That lake would be covered with dead fish . It is just the opposite . I would say the average would be 3 fish for the whole lake all day . Not 800 fish a day .
I did catch a young group of kids on the hump last year that had 5 floating fish around them and they continued jigging for fishing . Yes i gave them some words of wisdom . Would like to see a fine for this type of fishing .
Pictures of people holding 15 lb fish by gills .
I don't even thing a legal 75 cm fish is 15 lbs ,and if it is ,its NOT going back into the lake its going home for dinner. Its very easy to make a 8 lb fish look like 15 lbs when snapping a picture .

[-JR-]

Do you even fish that lake much .Saying "The successful release rate for larger lake trout is quite low ." That lake would be covered with dead fish . It is just the opposite . I would say the average would be 3 fish for the whole lake all day . Not 800 fish a day .
I did catch a young group of kids on the hump last year that had 5 floating fish around them and they continued jigging for fishing . Yes i gave them some words of wisdom . Would like to see a fine for this type of fishing .
Pictures of people holding 15 lb fish by gills .
I don't even thing a legal 75 cm fish is 15 lbs ,and if it is ,its NOT going back into the lake its going home for dinner. So its ok to hold a fish like this ,as your taking it home . Its very easy to make a 8 lb fish look like 15 lbs when snapping a picture .

[CBintheNorth]

Originally Posted by -JR-

This is why they should not remove them from the lake .
Leave the breeders alone .Take the much smaller fish as they taste better as 58thecat said .
I have been fishing this lake for over 40 years . Only 10% of the fish are over 65 cm .
My normal catch on a 8 hrs trip is around 50 fish . Only 4- 5 of those fish are over 65 cm . And now they want to remove them from the lake . I heard nothing about them doing a catch survey whats in that lake . They just asked the public to vote what size they would like to bring home .

They should not even take out the fish 60 and over .
The best slot size should be 55 -60 .
This way more fish will come up every year to be harvested and at the same time the fishermen will have more fun catching bigger fish all day that they can release.

There is a lot of anecdotal information in your post that you are trying to sell as scientific data. While I don't discount personal experience, it cannot be the only way of managing our resources.
Also, blowing off all the field research and talks with area biologists, F&W, and gov't officials is quite insulting to those that dedicated countless hours to getting the pending changes implemented.
But feel free to continue complaining about stuff that you didn't put an ounce of effort into..

[-JR-]

Sounds like you don't know how much I put into this lake over 40 years .
Most of the bio where not even born when i started fishing this lake .
And the way they came up with the size ,was by having a vote with the public what size they wanted . The only efford they had was deciding the 3 voting sizes . And thats how they said they picked it . If it was not the way why did they make use vote . Lol !
They used to do a survey years ago at the boat dock as fishermen came in .
They could of at least have done that by making people take a survey sheet sheet at the dock and filling it out on the sizes they caught and dropping them off in a box .

[CBintheNorth]

Originally Posted by -JR-

Sounds like you don't know how much I put into this lake over 40 years .
Most of the bio where not even born when i started fishing this lake .
And the way they came up with the size ,was by having a vote with the public what size they wanted . The only efford they had was deciding the 3 voting sizes . And thats how they said they picked it . If it was not the way why did they make use vote . Lol !
They used to do a survey years ago at the boat dock as fishermen came in .
They could of at least have done that by making people take a survey sheet sheet at the dock and filling it out on the sizes they caught and dropping them off in a box .

Fishing the lake and managing the resource are not the same thing.
The vote was a way to get angler's input, not to decide the slot size.
When considering the amount of pressure Cold Lake sees, allowing fish to spawn at least once before harvesting ensures that there will be future generations of fish.
If there wasn't as much pressure, the slot size could have been lowered knowing that enough fish would make it through the slot to keep the population going. Unfortunately with Cold Lake, that is not as likely and risking a total annihilation of middle-aged fish was not something anybody wanted to gamble on.
Rest assured, the data from those angler surveys that were done was used in these decisions.
A reassessment will be done within the next 5 years.

I can tell you assume everyone involved was just throwing darts at the wall, but I can assure you, you are dead wrong.