What happened to the Gull Lake Whitefish population ?

[the old man]

The whitefish in Gull Lake seem to have really crashed,according to a lot of the people I've talked to. I've heard stories of lots of dead fish in the summer,any thoughts ? Algae bloom ?

[Talking moose]

That and the hundreds of trucks on the lake each weekend.

[BuckCuller]

100% over fishing I have fished that lake all my life and tons of people would fill there limit in the morning take them home and come back for more even people from as far as Edmonton and Calgary. Reporting them did not seem to work either.

[Always Fishing]

We have to look at how our fishery management system which is not working first. They close lakes and force 95% of the whitefish fishing people to one lake (GULL) you are rebuilding one lake and depleting the other. Now we all have lost a resource that takes years to repair.

What this province needs is harvest level controls which should include native harvest controls. Without this we are managing our resource for them alone. We just closed down commercial netting a first step in harvest control. A fishing licence should have set amount of tags for every person fishing. When you have harvested your quotas and have no more tags you are now fishing and releasing, if you are caught with an untagged fish you should be fined and suspended heavily.

You can still have daily and lake limits but yearly issued tags are set at licencing, for example lets take whitefish: you are issued say 15 tags with your yearly licence Gull Lake has a 3 fish daily limit which means you could fish gull 5 times saying you are always successful or other lakes (that are open for whitefish on other days of fishing until reaching your quota of tags issued.

Lets be serious folks no one needs the right to have caught and kept 50 whitefish in a year this would mean you ate whitefish 1 fish every 7 days.

It time time that we start being smarter with our resource! Catch your limit but limit your catch.

[Always Fishing]

We have to look at how our fishery management system which is not working first. They close lakes and force 95% of the whitefish fishing people to one lake (GULL) you are rebuilding one lake and depleting the other. Now we all have lost a resource that takes years to repair.

What this province needs is harvest level controls which should include native harvest controls. Without this we are managing our resource for them alone. We just closed down commercial netting a first step in harvest control. A fishing licence should have set amount of tags for every person fishing. When you have harvested your quotas and have no more tags you are now fishing and releasing, if you are caught with an untagged fish you should be fined and suspended heavily.

You can still have daily and lake limits but yearly issued tags are set at licencing, for example lets take whitefish: you are issued say 15 tags with your yearly licence Gull Lake has a 3 fish daily limit which means you could fish gull 5 times saying you are always successful or other lakes (that are open for whitefish on other days of fishing until reaching your quota of tags issued.

Lets be serious folks no one needs the right to have caught and kept 50 whitefish in a year this would mean you ate whitefish 1 fish every 7 days.

It time time that we start being smarter with our resource! Catch your limit but limit your catch.

[Talking moose]

Originally Posted by Jet

Definitely blame it on truck drivers, they're the ones that steal all the fish.

Did I say that?
The truck drivers aren't stealing the fish. They are drilling holes through the ice and running hoses from their exhaust pipes into these drilled holes and poisoning the fish. I've seen it.

[DonTreadOnMe]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

Did I say that?
The truck drivers aren't stealing the fish. They are drilling holes through the ice and running hoses from their exhaust pipes into these drilled holes and poisoning the fish. I've seen it.

Some one has to do it....
I'm calling BS...


Hey Moose do you even have time to actually fish??? From your post count, I would say you spend all day on AO thinking of stupid S@#T to say.

[Talking moose]

Originally Posted by DonTreadOnMe

Some one has to do it....
I'm calling BS...

No fooling you. Your just too smart.

[FlyTheory]

Combined mix of harsh summer and heavy pressure, maybe not such a successful spawn either? Maybe people should step back a bit from gull and let it recover a bit! I've never fished there tho

[Dom4]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

No fooling you. Your just too smart.

You're*

[snowman160]

The alberta locusts cleaned It out!!!!who'da thunk it!

[Sloughsharkjigger]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

That and the hundreds of trucks on the lake each weekend.

Hey talking moose, you are defiantly not too far off the issue dude! Permission to elaborate for you....

Not too long ago hard water fishing was exactly that "hard"!! Prior to 4 wheel drive, quads, snow bears, etc. a person really had to work at to even get on a lake never mind traveling all over the lake. Between 4 wheel drive vehicles, atv's and all other forms of deep snow transport no bay is sacred anymore.

We continously target harvest limits, size limits & timing restrictions as strategies towards fisheries management yet the true cause is access management. If people had to work a little harder for a keeper or two, abuse of the resource would not be such a problem.

[RavYak]

Probably has nothing to do with the insane fishing pressure...

[Marlin07]

Was on Gull this morning, might have got lucky but there was no shortage of whites. What concerned me was the lack of burbot and pike. No one, used to catch and see lots

[tight line]

Summer Pressure, summerkills, warmer water temps, heavy ice fishing pressure, and another big factor, is the growing pop of Walleye! They like whites. This guy was picking up summerkill scraps!

[tight line]

Took me a while to find the whites this year.. But they are there, i seen some bruisers last trip, and a couple good keepers!

[burnme]

I Do believe over fishing is a concern, I do believe they are out there. As far as pike and burbot, they just seem to be full! We had a few each day swim in look at the bait and leave, no interest what so ever. And maybe summer fishing is taking a toll on the Pike, my son and I have seen several people keep fish we are sure are too small, can't verify cause we aren't there to measure. I even wonder if all people fishing have a license at some of the new resorts on the lake? Reporting does nothing cause fish and wildlife are to stretched.

[deerassassin]

Me thinks notley had something to do with it. No deer no fish no snow no jobs.

[Kim473]

Over fishing, both comercial and angling. With netting gone, that will help a little but not enough.

Taging all fish will just put money in the hands of the Gov. to spend on payout packages. They need to start closeing/C&R some lakes, if not all, for a year or two before it's too late.

Maybe limit how many licences are issued every year for a while. But that will just get more people poaching, fishing with no licence, and again more money in the Gov pockets to waste if they get fined. Takes us back to close/C&R all the lakes and anybody with a fish in there possesion gets fined and such. Very easy to inforce and no fish removed from lakes.

Just one female that lays 1,000 eggs and only 1/2 survived = 500 more fish in a lake. Hmmmm Adds up pretty fast if you left 10,000 females in the lakes. = 5 million more fish. And i'm sure you could easly double those numbers.

[Talking moose]

Originally Posted by Kim473

Over fishing, both comercial and angling. With netting gone, that will help a little but not enough.

Taging all fish will just put money in the hands of the Gov. to spend on payout packages. They need to start closeing/C&R some lakes, if not all, for a year or two before it's too late.

Maybe limit how many licences are issued every year for a while. But that will just get more people poaching, fishing with no licence, and again more money in the Gov pockets to waste if they get fined. Takes us back to close/C&R all the lakes and anybody with a fish in there possesion gets fined and such. Very easy to inforce and no fish removed from lakes.

Just one female that lays 1,000 eggs and only 1/2 survived = 500 more fish in a lake. Hmmmm Adds up pretty fast if you left 10,000 females in the lakes. = 5 million more fish. And i'm sure you could easly double those numbers.

Your egg laying and survival rate percentages are way way off but it's still a good point.

[SNAPFisher]

Just ask Bluegrass. I'm sure he will be free with all his information

Some good points are being made here. The constant pressure and a bad egg year can go a long way to noticing a difference. I'm throwing in the water clarity. It was never great but it is really bad now. Cloudy always seems to be followed by some tough years of fishing. If we do not get a very wet year soon, it's not going to improve either.

[Kim473]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

Your egg laying and survival rate percentages are way way off but it's still a good point.

Your correct.

Reproduction

The spawning season for the lake whitefish is in the fall (usually mid-October to early December) when shallow water temperatures fall below 45° F. Spawning usually occurs at night over gravel, rubble, or small rocks near the shores of the lake or around islands. The fish swim up to the surface of the water and back down in twos, threes, or greater numbers releasing eggs and sperm. The fertilized eggs fall to the bottom and settle between the rock crevices. A single female can lay 10,000-130,000 eggs depending on her size. The embryos develop through the winter and hatch in early spring.

Lets say then, 50% survival. 50,000 eggs X 1,000 spawning fish = 50 million fish per lake per year. 1/2 get eaten by preditors = 25 million fish per lake. Wouldn't take long for them to recover. The added bounus would be the preditors would have more feed and grow bigger/faster.

Two years with all lakes C&R only would make the lakes very well stocked again. Would take 5 years or more for them to get to a decent size.

Thats my point and opinion ! Wouldn't kill me to not beeing able to keep a fish for a year or two.

[Talking moose]

Originally Posted by Kim473

Your correct.

Reproduction

The spawning season for the lake whitefish is in the fall (usually mid-October to early December) when shallow water temperatures fall below 45° F. Spawning usually occurs at night over gravel, rubble, or small rocks near the shores of the lake or around islands. The fish swim up to the surface of the water and back down in twos, threes, or greater numbers releasing eggs and sperm. The fertilized eggs fall to the bottom and settle between the rock crevices. A single female can lay 10,000-130,000 eggs depending on her size. The embryos develop through the winter and hatch in early spring.

Lets say then, 50% survival. 50,000 eggs X 1,000 spawning fish = 50 million fish per lake per year. 1/2 get eaten by preditors = 25 million fish per lake. Wouldn't take long for them to recover. The added bounus would be the preditors would have more feed and grow bigger/faster.

Two years with all lakes C&R only would make the lakes very well stocked again. Would take 5 years or more for them to get to a decent size.

Thats my point and opinion ! Wouldn't kill me to not beeing able to keep a fish for a year or two.

Survival rate from egg to adult fish is a fraction of 50%..... Probably closer to 1%.... If that.

[FlyTheory]

Originally Posted by Talking moose

Survival rate from egg to adult fish is a fraction of 50%..... Probably closer to 1%.... If that.

As well as more than 50% of them get eaten before sexual maturity.

[RavYak]

Originally Posted by Kim473

Taging all fish will just put money in the hands of the Gov. to spend on payout packages. They need to start closeing/C&R some lakes, if not all, for a year or two before it's too late.

Closing lakes is not the answer. Put the limit to 1 first before you close it.

Also open it to walleye as there are lots of them in there disturbing the chain of other species.

There are still tons of fish in Gull limits just need to be managed and no matter how bad it gets I hope they never close it. If they do say good bye to every other keeping lake in the area...

[Kim473]

Still at 1% = 500,000 per year per lake. Thats a lot of fish. Just the white fish ! 1/2 a million more whites in Gull would sure be nice. I hope they keep the ban on netting for another 5 years that will help a tiny bit. But they need to limit the keep on all lakes even further than what it is now. IMO C&R only all lakes for two years.

[FlyTheory]

Originally Posted by Kim473

IMO C&R only all lakes for two years.

I am 110% agreement with this. Or a circulation of C&R + reduced limits.

[RavYak]

Originally Posted by Kim473

Still at 1% = 500,000 per year per lake. Thats a lot of fish. Just the white fish ! 1/2 a million more whites in Gull would sure be nice. I hope they keep the ban on netting for another 5 years that will help a tiny bit. But they need to limit the keep on all lakes even further than what it is now. IMO C&R only all lakes for two years.

Why when there are still tons of fish to catch?

We aren't even close to having to go C&R on everything yet and many of Alberta lakes are hurting due to over population.

Many individual lake limits need to be addressed, anything more at this time is a knee jerk over reaction.

[Hueston]

How long till sylvan is the same way

[Talking moose]

Originally Posted by Hueston

How long till sylvan is the same way

If they ever close gull to taking home a whitefish, I would think sylvan would be hit hard and would be the same way shortly after.