a thread to express your feelings for c&r fish.

[Dust1n]

Originally Posted by BGSH

What is the difference between lake sturgeon and river sturgeon, and obviously sturgeon are endangered in some parts of Alberta due to 0 harvest limits, big fines up to 100 thousand dollars.

where can you keep sturgeon in alberta? im pretty sure its all C&R.

[BeeGuy]

He's not suggesting there is any retention.

He's suggesting that in some parts of Alberta they are endangered. And the 0 retention limit is proof of their status.

Lake Sturgeon are not classified as endangered in Alberta, however they are classified as both a species at risk, and threatened.

3 sturgeon species are protected federally by the Species at Risk Act (SARA).
These are the green, white, and shovelnose sturgeon.

I believe the Lake Sturgeon is currently under review.

[pickrel pat]

Originally Posted by Fish Hunter7

toirtis im sure would love to say something about this subject. what about if you fishing for cutties and a bull trout grabs your lure instead now what?

in alberta you release it..... lol....... there is no......" now what? ". simple.

[pickrel pat]

Originally Posted by Fish Hunter7

where can you keep sturgeon in alberta? im pretty sure its all C&R.

where does he say you can keep sturg??????????????

[Gust]

Originally Posted by pickrel pat

in alberta you release it..... lol....... there is no......" now what? ". simple.

but technically speaking or writing,,, you caught a cutthroat inflicted with bull trout on the tail,, or you caught a cutty that seemed to be partially gorged upon,,, because I think using live cutthroat for bull trout is illegal,, though the bull you caught on the cutty wasn't hooked,,,, "now what???" is a slippery slope indeed.

But to the original question, "what are my feelings of C&R fish?" well pending my mood, a fair amount of pathos with a sprinkling of drama,,, to add to the overall feeling I play a blues harmonica in a broody fashion and use phrases like Aw Shucks or Hotdiggiddy or both in succession or not at all,,,, to be honest, I usually exclaim hotdiggiddy when I release them into butter and lemon grass seasoning.

[Dust1n]

Originally Posted by pickrel pat

in alberta you release it..... lol....... there is no......" now what? ". simple.

Originally Posted by pickrel pat

where does he say you can keep sturg??????????????

he said obviously sturgeon are endangered in some parts of Alberta due to 0 harvest limits.
the nsr sturgeon are doing great and theres still no sturgeon limits.
i know the regs about the sturgeon and theres a zero limit but its not like we could finish eating a 50lb sturgeon lol. besides they take along time to get to the weight they are today. and will loose its niche if the sturgeon are kept and the suckers start to take over.

[BGSH]

Originally Posted by GustavMahler

but technically speaking or writing,,, you caught a cutthroat inflicted with bull trout on the tail,, or you caught a cutty that seemed to be partially gorged upon,,, because I think using live cutthroat for bull trout is illegal,, though the bull you caught on the cutty wasn't hooked,,,, "now what???" is a slippery slope indeed.

But to the original question, "what are my feelings of C&R fish?" well pending my mood.

But in many places it does not matter what mood you are in, you could be wanting to keep the fish but many places are C&R, no matter how bad i would like to fry one up many places are catch and release.

[Gust]

Originally Posted by BGSH

But in many places it does not matter what mood you are in, you could be wanting to keep the fish but many places are C&R, no matter how bad i would like to fry one up many places are catch and release.

REALLY?????

I rarely fish where the mood is strictly C&R and I find the company of fishing beside those folks a bit automatonical, I mean how many times can you listen to the stories about Gaddabout Gaddis or the Petunias Miss Penelope brought to potluck celebrating the new Well out by the old willow,,, I C&R with the intent of 1 for the pan. I don't target sturgeon, even when you could keep them, as the skillet required a forklift to get it off the trailer you towed it in on. Though I must say that I found the taste of sturge like chicken,, free range chicken, or free range chicken that fed on free range pheasant.

[Dust1n]

Originally Posted by GustavMahler

REALLY?????

I rarely fish where the mood is strictly C&R and I find the company of fishing beside those folks a bit automatonical, I mean how many times can you listen to the stories about Gaddabout Gaddis or the Petunias Miss Penelope brought to potluck celebrating the new Well out by the old willow,,, I C&R with the intent of 1 for the pan. I don't target sturgeon, even when you could keep them, as the skillet required a forklift to get it off the trailer you towed it in on. Though I must say that I found the taste of sturge like chicken,, free range chicken, or free range chicken that fed on free range pheasant.

on the movie with ice cube they killed tons of sturgeon for there freezer and they said it tastes like chickin but fishy haha

[BGSH]

I do not think you can keep sturgeon anywhere is Canada?

[Dust1n]

Originally Posted by BGSH

I do not think you can keep sturgeon anywhere is Canada?

me neither but you can in the usa according to the movie "are we done yet"

[Gust]

Originally Posted by BGSH

I do not think you can keep sturgeon anywhere is Canada?

parts of quebec.

[WayneChristie]

I like the idea of C and R but I also like to keep the odd fish for the smoker. Kind of hard to C and R when you are bowfishing too

[BGSH]

Originally Posted by WayneChristie

I like the idea of C and R but I also like to keep the odd fish for the smoker. Kind of hard to C and R when you are bowfishing too

Haha times two but i usually just release most fish, if i do keep fish usually from stocked ponds even though they are muddy, it is nice to have a fresh rainbow once in a while, very healthy choices.

Shawn

[BeeGuy]

C&R:

Sometimes I want to.

Sometimes I have to.

Sometimes I don't.


Can't say I've ever released a burbot.

[Pikebreath]

The reality is that in most waters if everyone fished catch and keep, there would be very few fish left for any one to catch, The catch & keep anglers should be grateful that the C&R anglers put the fish back to be caught more than once!

[Tyangelo]

Agreed. If SRD all of a sudden opened up Wabamun to comply with Provincial limits, the quality of the fishery it has become would plummet rapidly from the added pressure, and decrease of remaining fish. I feel that especially in C&R only lakes, the fishing pressure is much less, as it seems to draw more experienced anglers who have more respect towards the fish population than your average Joe. I have always wondered what would happen if there was a rotation... Like, Pigeon is all C&R for a year, then Wab, then Gull, etc. Obviously, trying to keep the rotation within certain regions.

[Kim473]

I don't support C&R, I think that there are too many fish that die from the stress of beeing caught. If they wanted to protect a lake or stream from fishing pressure just close the lake to no fishing. I fish for fun and eat my catch. I would not be against F&W closing 1/2 the lakes in the province on a year to year rotation if it bettered the fish populations and size. Open one year then closed one year. It would not even hurt my feelings if they closed all lakes for say two or three years No fishing, even 5 years. That would also include netting. All fish would get larger and more of them. Does it not make sense to go out and keep 5 - 12" perch rather than 15 - 8" or one 8lb walleye rather than two or three 3lb ones. The lower catch limits on larger fish would still give you the same amount of meals and still have a large population of larger fish in all waters. Close the lakes and streams for two full years and see what happens. F&W need to stock more feeder fish into the lakes tho, just look at Calling lake for one example, Pigeon Lake too. The slot size and protecting walleye is hurting all other the fish as the walleye are eating every thing else. Close the lakes, stop stocking walleye, stock feeder fish and let nature take its course. Guarantied you will have more and larger fish of all kinds in 5 years. Then you can open them all with a smaller limit with no slot size as it wont be needed as your one fish will feed twice as many.
JMO

[BGSH]

Originally Posted by Kim473

I don't support C&R, I think that there are too many fish that die from the stress of beeing caught. If they wanted to protect a lake or stream from fishing pressure just close the lake to no fishing. I fish for fun and eat my catch. I would not be against F&W closing 1/2 the lakes in the province on a year to year rotation if it bettered the fish populations and size. Open one year then closed one year. It would not even hurt my feelings if they closed all lakes for say two or three years No fishing, even 5 years. That would also include netting. All fish would get larger and more of them. Does it not make sense to go out and keep 5 - 12" perch rather than 15 - 8" or one 8lb walleye rather than two or three 3lb ones. The lower catch limits on larger fish would still give you the same amount of meals and still have a large population of larger fish in all waters. Close the lakes and streams for two full years and see what happens. F&W need to stock more feeder fish into the lakes tho, just look at Calling lake for one example, Pigeon Lake too. The slot size and protecting walleye is hurting all other the fish as the walleye are eating every thing else. Close the lakes, stop stocking walleye, stock feeder fish and let nature take its course. Guarantied you will have more and larger fish of all kinds in 5 years. Then you can open them all with a smaller limit with no slot size as it wont be needed as your one fish will feed twice as many.
JMO

Really, you do not c&r that is to bad for you, it is a great feeling letting a ten pound walleye go back in the river only to be caught the next year, or a monster trout from a stream only to be caught again in a couple years, if you handle fish right, they go back no problems at all, you should try it to release fish once in a while.

[Pikebreath]

Most of you are probably too young to remember that our foothill streams used to be managed by alternating annual closures back in the 50's, 60's and into the 70's.... It didn't work with increasing resource acess and angling presusure, open waters were hammered hard leaving few fish to do the breeding in the off years.

Thanks to much reduced harvest limits and more C&R angling, the overall quality of our foothill trout fishing is actually much better now than it was in the 70's,,,,,, (though I am sure many with nostalgic viewpoints would like to debate that,,,, that is human nature as we all tend to remember "first times" very fondly !!)

C&R is a management tool, In todays world, fish populations cannot sustain an unrestricted level of harvest, hence we we need limit angling mortality. Yes there is some mortailty with C&R ,,, most studies suggest 5 - 10% hooking mortality ,,, I suspect it may be closer to 20% in a lot of fisheries if you factor in other things such as handling, water temps, depth the fish was caught at, etc. However a fish that is caught and kept has a 100% mortailty rate.

So at a 20% mortality rate, A C&R fish can be "re-cycled" amongst 5 anglers rather than just one angler in a catch and keep scenario.

I have no problem with people keeping a few fish to eat where legal and I do keep the odd pike and walleye for fresh shore lunches,,, I do have a problem though with anglers who hi-grade their catch through the day and / or become C&R anglers after they have kept their limit as they contribute to both types of angling mortality (incidental and intentional).

However, C&R anglers who while not keeping any fish continue to fish and catch obscene numbers of fish per day are "not off the hook" either. If you catch 40 fish per day you likely will have killed from 2 - to 8 fish which is equal to higher than most possession limits allow now!

[ak-71]

I have some mixed feelings about C&R.
I think if in some water body fish population is so fragile, that it cannot be harvested, then in my opinion it shouldn't be bothered at all, since C&R kills some fish anyway.
If in some waters fish can be sustained with some catch limits - I won't feel sorry keeping some fish. I see eating what I catch with a family and sometimes friends as an integral part of fishing. And I almost never keep full limit even if I can
The only time I feel C&R is appropriate is a situation like in Bow River - there is a healthy fish population, but way too many potential anglers in a large city. C&R cuts the number of anglers a lot. But I don't consider strict C&R to be a real fishing - it's more like a practice run.

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by BeeGuy

He's not suggesting there is any retention.

He's suggesting that in some parts of Alberta they are endangered. And the 0 retention limit is proof of their status.

Lake Sturgeon are not classified as endangered in Alberta, however they are classified as both a species at risk, and threatened.

3 sturgeon species are protected federally by the Species at Risk Act (SARA).
These are the green, white, and shovelnose sturgeon.

I believe the Lake Sturgeon is currently under review.

How about shortnosed? They in Canada?

[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by BGSH

Really, you do not c&r that is to bad for you, it is a great feeling letting a ten pound walleye go back in the river only to be caught the next year, or a monster trout from a stream only to be caught again in a couple years, if you handle fish right, they go back no problems at all, you should try it to release fish once in a while.

Agreed X1MM

I would say mortality is the responsibility of the fisherman. While you can not always protect from a ripped gill...it is not common and using the right sized hook, line and technique helps tremendously.

There is a learning curve for newbies insofar as there is a big difference in handling a fish and removing a hook if you are retaining it or not. A lot of people haul a fish on to the bank..let them bash their heads on rocks for a couple minutes...taking photos then throwing them back in. All that is needed is education. How to provide that education is the question. I have seen many, many fishing shows exhibiting poor catch and release techniques.

[BeeGuy]

Originally Posted by Sundancefisher

How about shortnosed? They in Canada?

Hey Sun,

I made some corrections to this post in the NSR sturgeon thread and included some links to pertinent info.

5 of 8 populations of Lake sturgeon in Canada are classified as endangered as of 2006/2007. This includes the Sask River population.

The reports I read originally were from before these dates so they weren't yet classified as endangered.

The shortnose only occurs in the St.Johns river in New Brunswick in Canada.

As of 2005 it was listed as "Special Concern".

[Don K]

C&R all the way!
Love to catch em, but they taste way to fishy...:sHa_

Wish I could C&R deer...