Public Meeting To Discuss Underutilized Fish Stocks in Northeast Alberta - September 7, 2016

[solocam3]

For the past 16 years many public lakes in Alberta have had zero catch limits on walleye and northern pike. Numerous anglers have expressed concern and are asking why not allow some fish to be caught and utilized by Albertans. Anglers want to have healthy fish stocks and still use the annual production.
Harvest of fish could be restricted by various ways and there is a concern that nothing will be done in all of the lakes that seem to have abundant numbers of fish.
The public is invited to express your concerns and ideas on September 7, 2016 at Lac Bellevue Hall (on Hwy 881 located 12 miles south of St. Paul.)
Local MLAS, biologists, government personnel are invited to attend.
Discussion will not be limited but will include the following lakes: Lac Bellevue, Kehewin, Bangs, Heart, Lac La Biche, Hilda, Ethel, Marie, Beaver, Floatingstone, Goodfish, Crane, Clear (Barnes), Wabamun; Touchwood, Ironwood, Hope, Amisk, Gregoire, Laurier, Moose, Marie, Seibert, Winefred and numerous other lakes that have had zero or restricted catch limits for the past 16 years.
This is your chance to indicate your expectations as these are public lakes and publicly owned fish.
Local MLA’s Dave Hanson and Scott Cyr will be attending. Local biologists and the Minister of Environment and Parks have also been invited.

Attend the meeting and voice your opinion.
• September 7, 2016 at 7 pm
• Lac Bellevue Hall (located on Hwy 881 - 12 miles south of St. Paul)
• Coffee and donuts will be provided
• Supporting groups include Lac Bellevue Recreation and Agricultural Society, St. Paul Agricultural Society, St. Paul Fish and Game Association, Beaver River Fish and Game Association, Zone 5 Fish and Game Association.
• Call Ray Makowecki at 780 918-5527 if you have any questions

[PerchBuster]

This is fantastic! Count me in, I will be there!

[FlyTheory]

I'm in!

[PerchBuster]

Crap...! Forgot I will be out of town that day and unable to attend, however, I fully support the initiative to open many of these lakes to some moderate and selective harvest. Is there another way that I can participate with my views without unfortunately being able to be there?

[fish99]

why is it the biologists think you need to catch 50 fish a day and if you cannot, the lake is collapsed and have zero retention.

[jungleboy]

Originally Posted by fish99

why is it the biologists think you need to catch 50 fish a day and if you cannot, the lake is collapsed and have zero retention.

September 7, 2016 at Lac Bellevue Hall (on Hwy 881 located 12 miles south of St. Paul, might be a better time and place to ask that question

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by solocam3

For the past 16 years many public lakes in Alberta have had zero catch limits on walleye and northern pike. Numerous anglers have expressed concern and are asking why not allow some fish to be caught and utilized by Albertans. Anglers want to have healthy fish stocks and still use the annual production.
Harvest of fish could be restricted by various ways and there is a concern that nothing will be done in all of the lakes that seem to have abundant numbers of fish.
The public is invited to express your concerns and ideas on September 7, 2016 at Lac Bellevue Hall (on Hwy 881 located 12 miles south of St. Paul.)
Local MLAS, biologists, government personnel are invited to attend.
Discussion will not be limited but will include the following lakes: Lac Bellevue, Kehewin, Bangs, Heart, Lac La Biche, Hilda, Ethel, Marie, Beaver, Floatingstone, Goodfish, Crane, Clear (Barnes), Wabamun; Touchwood, Ironwood, Hope, Amisk, Gregoire, Laurier, Moose, Marie, Seibert, Winefred and numerous other lakes that have had zero or restricted catch limits for the past 16 years.
This is your chance to indicate your expectations as these are public lakes and publicly owned fish.
Local MLA’s Dave Hanson and Scott Cyr will be attending. Local biologists and the Minister of Environment and Parks have also been invited.

Attend the meeting and voice your opinion.
• September 7, 2016 at 7 pm
• Lac Bellevue Hall (located on Hwy 881 - 12 miles south of St. Paul)
• Coffee and donuts will be provided
• Supporting groups include Lac Bellevue Recreation and Agricultural Society, St. Paul Agricultural Society, St. Paul Fish and Game Association, Beaver River Fish and Game Association, Zone 5 Fish and Game Association.
• Call Ray Makowecki at 780 918-5527 if you have any questions

In light of concerns over carbon use compounded with advances in technology why is there no phone in and/or video conferencing option?

[enduro155]

Did anything come up out of this? I was going to attend but was unable to.

[RavYak]

I would be interested to hear what came of this as well. Wish I would have known about it/been able to go because AEP needs to be grilled hard on some of these lakes.

[FishmasterJ]

https://lakelandconnect.net/2016/09/...eye-addressed/
I hope that link works. If not go to lakelandconnect.net and look for the article "zero limit on walleye addressed".

[RavYak]

Originally Posted by FishmasterJ

https://lakelandconnect.net/2016/09/...eye-addressed/
I hope that link works. If not go to lakelandconnect.net and look for the article "zero limit on walleye addressed".

Well it sounds like the message was loud and clear, now we see if the people in charge actually care and do anything about it.

Interesting that in the article they list Cold Lake as collapsed yet you can keep walleye there while there are closed walleye lakes in that area absolutely polluted with fish that you can't keep...

[FishmasterJ]

The article only addresses the highlights of the meeting. There was much more to it (I attended the meeting). Including:
-lots of concern about high cormorant numbers
-in order to do fish counts, biologists net (kill) fish. They kill thousands of fish in some lakes each time they survey a lake. The accuracy and need for this method was questioned and criticized
-the MLAs that attended were Wildrose/PC, nobody from the current provincial government (NDP) attended
-there was a concern and high criticism of the government biologists, and fish/wildlife employees in general
-there was concern about a perceived steep decline in perch numbers

[PerchBuster]

Bravo!!! Bravo!!! I applaud the results of the meeting and I fully support all of them. This many people can't be wrong and I know there has to be lots more who feel the same way but never participated or voiced there support yet. Unfortunately I was travelling and missed it. I think it's great and the right thing to do. They could even have rolling lake blackout periods/closures for the Walleye etc where they close it for a couple years every so often and reopen again for selective harvest of the more juvenile sized fish of fine table fare quality and size, not the adult or breeding stock and trophy's. They are right there are tons of Walleye in a lot of lakes that are seemingly over abundant and of good harvestable size. Some culling would be good for the various waterbodies in my opinion! Count me in for support of this initiative 100%.

[smitty9]

I get that people I don't like the tag system, I don't either.

But! The one major advantage of a tag system is that it allows the bios set exactly the number and sizes of fish for each lake.

Whereas even allowing 1 walleye per angler per lake per outing could still collapse a fishery. Of course, I'll cherry pick my example and use Pigeon Lake. How sustainable would Pigeon lake be if every angler kept one fish for every outing. I'd be concerned...

However, I think they could manage the 1 limit if they made that tradeoff of having a limited harvest season. Depending on each lake, it could be as little as a few weeks to a few months. Spread it out between open water and ice fishing.

We simply have too many anglers, too little waters, this isn't Saskatchewan, yadda blah, yadda blah. Most of us have heard this before.

Anyways, it's good for anglers to speak up and see if our gov't makes any adjustments based on demand and how to manage fishing pressure. Yet stable fish populations have to come before a movement to harvest and/or uncomplicating the regs, imho.

Smitty

[RavYak]

Originally Posted by smitty9

I get that people I don't like the tag system, I don't either.

But! The one major advantage of a tag system is that it allows the bios set exactly the number and sizes of fish for each lake.

Whereas even allowing 1 walleye per angler per lake per outing could still collapse a fishery. Of course, I'll cherry pick my example and use Pigeon Lake. How sustainable would Pigeon lake be if every angler kept one fish for every outing. I'd be concerned...

However, I think they could manage the 1 limit if they made that tradeoff of having a limited harvest season. Depending on each lake, it could be as little as a few weeks to a few months. Spread it out between open water and ice fishing.

We simply have too many anglers, too little waters, this isn't Saskatchewan, yadda blah, yadda blah. Most of us have heard this before.

Anyways, it's good for anglers to speak up and see if our gov't makes any adjustments based on demand and how to manage fishing pressure. Yet stable fish populations have to come before a movement to harvest and/or uncomplicating the regs, imho.

Smitty

Agreed especially when you have every other lake closed like they currently do...

With multiple lakes open to spread the pressure I think they could get away with 1 fish limits especially in areas with lots of lakes like the lakeland area that this meeting was specifically meant to address.

Lakes like pigeon work decent enough with the tag system but I don't think tags are needed in the Lakeland area. There are still open lakes there now and those lakes still get by even though they are seeing increased pressure due to all the other closures in the area.

[huntsfurfish]

[Brandonkop]

I sure hope they open a whole bunch of them... even if it is for a limited period of time each year. They need to open them all up though to spread the pressure out. The perch and pike are suffering for a fish, the walleye... that we can't even keep. I mean these fish Bios make no sense. If they can't fix a lake after 15 years of closure and it being full to the brim of walleye then what are they doing right?

They want something like 10 good year classes of walleye to call it not collapsed. Well the Bios can't get it through their head that if you protect a large population of adult fish they eat every other smaller year class. Just dumb. Really, really dumb. I'm frustrated. Seriously a bunch of fools make the regs. You don't need to kill hundreds of walleye with test nets either. Just ask the public, we can tell you the population and average size after fishing a lake for a couple days.

I hope this changes something. I think a whole lot more of us need to start meetings like this.

[FlyTheory]

I wasn't able to make it due to personal problems but if there's another I will definitely come. I hope one also is organized about trout lakes as I feel more management needs to be applied there.

[3blade]

Originally Posted by Brandonkop

I sure hope they open a whole bunch of them... even if it is for a limited period of time each year. They need to open them all up though to spread the pressure out. The perch and pike are suffering for a fish, the walleye... that we can't even keep. I mean these fish Bios make no sense. If they can't fix a lake after 15 years of closure and it being full to the brim of walleye then what are they doing right?

They want something like 10 good year classes of walleye to call it not collapsed. Well the Bios can't get it through their head that if you protect a large population of adult fish they eat every other smaller year class. Just dumb. Really, really dumb. I'm frustrated. Seriously a bunch of fools make the regs. You don't need to kill hundreds of walleye with test nets either. Just ask the public, we can tell you the population and average size after fishing a lake for a couple days.

I hope this changes something. I think a whole lot more of us need to start meetings like this.

If we fired every biologist currently working, and hired only those with zero history of eco-activism, our fish and game populations would recover within a decade. Everything is being 'managed' to death.

[FlyTheory]

Originally Posted by 3blade

If we fired every biologist currently working, and hired only those with zero history of eco-activism, our fish and game populations would recover within a decade. Everything is being 'managed' to death.

Mmm I respectfully disagree. I think the ecoactivism is a positive thing, just the delay in implementation of regulations is a little too delayed. If people didnt care, all the walleye in the NSR would be gone, know what I mean? Just walleye lakes need to be open for one year to equalize the pressure b/w species and that would most likely help. Mature walleye and mid-sized pike are in the same competitive niche and since all the pike are kept, walleye really have no inter-species competition, just competition is among walleye. I'm kind of disappointed in fish bios for not giving this a try.