Pigeon Lake Walleye Draws

[Speckle55]

Originally Posted by deerhuntercentral

I will concede there are likely still some perch in Lesser Slave if you know where to go, no question, but I will say it's probably not as good as it was at one time. The key point i was trying to make I guess is this big push to manage for walleye exclusively with no consideration of other species. If anyone gave a crap about the pike or perch they would be on a draw too no? I can catch 20 walleye for every pike in Lesser Slave, I am sure many of the hard managed walleye lakes are the same.

Agree .. David

[Penner]

Originally Posted by buckmaster

X2, pigeon lake used to be a excellent fishery for perch and whites. Whateverr happened to the smaller whitefish that you would catch frequently at pigeon?

Perch fishing was long gone from Pigeon well before the Walleye arrived. You literally had 100's of people targeting Perch in the winter pulling them up from +25ft of water. It was a slaughter. Today I still see plenty of fingerling Perch in Pigeon while ice fishing for whites. Fingerlings would be the primary target for Walleye not those 12 inchers.

As for the Whitefish they shut-down the commercial fishery for several years allowing the Whitefish to grow to larger size. Not to worry, your wish of catching smaller Whitefish will soon become reality again as the commercial fishery is up and running once again. All of the larger Whitefish will soon be filtered out. Just give it a few years.

Originally Posted by deerhuntercentral

The key point i was trying to make I guess is this big push to manage for walleye exclusively with no consideration of other species. If anyone gave a crap about the pike or perch they would be on a draw too no? I can catch 20 walleye for every pike in Lesser Slave, I am sure many of the hard managed walleye lakes are the same.

I agree 100%. I think SRD needs to learn from there past mistakes. All species in a particular water body need to be managed together otherwise you end up with an unbalanced mixed of species. Nature would eventually correct the mistake but better cross-species management could correct it faster. I believe the draw system address this issue if each water body is managed/monitored closely.

[SNAPFisher]

Penner, great post! A lot of common sense in there.

I would add Floatingstone as another lake, not so close to a big centre, that has been destroyed as well. The perch fishing was good 10 and earlier years ago. However, limits for walleye and pike were set to zero and perch were hung out there. it was amazing to see the groups, and groups of boats targeting perch. There were a small handful of us still enjoying C&R for Pike and Walleye. Less than 2 years later and perch were along the same experience as Pigeon.

[Penner]

Originally Posted by SNAPFisher

Penner, great post! A lot of common sense in there.

I would add Floatingstone as another lake, not so close to a big centre, that has been destroyed as well. The perch fishing was good 10 and earlier years ago. However, limits for walleye and pike were set to zero and perch were hung out there. it was amazing to see the groups, and groups of boats targeting perch. There were a small handful of us still enjoying C&R for Pike and Walleye. Less than 2 years later and perch were along the same experience as Pigeon.

Thanks.

Hows the H2O levels in Floatingstone these days? Lots of lakes in the area look to be in trouble. I haven't fished Floatingstone for many years now.

[SNAPFisher]

Brutal! Not as much snow up there either. Not like around here. FloatingStone is down noticeably. I know that Upper Mann, where I have the cabin, we are now into about 7-8 FOW down in about 10 years. Not far above slough status now.

[Kim473]

Hav'nt any of you noticed the perch are going down in # since the slot sizes and closed limits? Soon the perch will be extinct from all our lakes if F&W keep protecting the eyes and pike. Close the lakes completly and let mother do her thing. I went to my spot at Isle in early Jan but they were not bitting at that time, tried on two other occasions but was unable to get to my honey hole cuase of the snow. Oh well, next year. Thats all that happened this year there Horsetrader. Caught a few nice perch at long, got skunked at N.Buck three times this year but could see hundreds on the cam in a couple of hours. They just were not bitting there this year as before. Tried Nakamun last weekend after trying to get on to Isle with no luck, too much snow and caught 100 6" perch with a few keepers about 8" We were in 17 fow and the perch were at just under the ice to 8 fow, never seen perch do that before. Allways found them at the bottom. Winter kill? Or maybe chasing shrimp? There are a lot of perch in there, had a bite every 30 seconds. Think that lake needs some large pike to get rid of the tiny perch. Put my tags in for Isle and Long Lake Class A and B for Isle and B for long. Hope I get Isle its only an hour from home. Getting tired of the long drives and too much $ in gas. Calling Lake this sping and summer. Again long drive. Think I need to move about 3/4 hour north. Would be close to all the good lakes then.

[Penner]

Originally Posted by SNAPFisher

Brutal! Not as much snow up there either. Not like around here. FloatingStone is down noticeably. I know that Upper Mann, where I have the cabin, we are now into about 7-8 FOW down in about 10 years. Not far above slough status now.

I remember seeing guys fishing the culvert from a boat at the highways edge on Mann Lakes 20 years ago. You just about can't see the Lake from the highway anymore.

They should pump water into all of those lakes from the NorthSask via pipelines and get oil & gas to pay for the costs. How about a $0.10 a barrel habitat improvement tax? Could be used for all sorts of projects (Lake Rehabilitation, Enhanced Stocking Programs, Buck for Wildlife, Wetlands Rehabilitation, Hiring more CO’s, etc.) at 5 billion barrels a year it would work out to a cool $50 million a year.