Cow Lake Ijnfo.

Howdy guys,
Looking at heading to Cow Lake near Rocky Mountain House tomorrow, has anyone heard any reports or know any tips for the lake. First time there and I'll have the little ones with us.

Thanks,
Walker

Hey Walker, best advice I can give you is...

Go on the at the boat launch/day use area, make a hard right, and get into that corner of the lake in a maximum of 5 feet of water. Hard to see the bottom for some reason this year, but if you have a tent its awesome. We got a bunch of perch in like 2 - 3 feet of water, so somewhere in there. There is some nice ones too we saw a few that were over 10 inches...

A guy I work with has gone a few times and has limited out each time. He goes just out from the point by the main camp ground.

How long ago were you there? Kinda thinking of trying there tomorrow too.
Thanks

Is anybody catching any pike at cow? Does anyone know how many, and how big the pike were that they stocked the lake with were?

I was wondering that myself. But according to the 2006 fish stocking report;

www.srd.gov.ab.ca/fw/fish...ocking.pdf

only 43 pike were stocked in Alberta last year.

19 in Nakamun Lake
24 in Joker Lake

There's a sign at the day use area/boat launch about the pike. We saw 1 small one while we were perch fishing and had a nice 16 inch rainbow on the hook too... no big pike seen, but Im sure they stocked mostly small ones but a few bigger ones to reproduce and start building a pike population.

If there is already perch + trout in there, why would they want to start a pike population in there? just wondering.

Because it was originally a trophy trout fishery, and some moron thought it would be great to illegally intoduce perch into there. Well, they thrived, and the population exploded, mostly small perch with a few decent ones. Now, after pike have been put in, you can definitely notice more bigger fish.

I think what they are doing with the pike is to try and thin out the perch so there is more of better size, and to establish a trophy pike fishery in the process. Wait 5 years and I'll betcha there'll be some hawgs.

They should try introducing walleye to get rid of the perch. Eat a lot more than pike I think. Pine lake for example has a stunted perch population with bigger walleye than pike. Usually the pike in Pine have nothing but shrimp in their guts.

If they tried walleye theres an excellent chance no reproduction would take place, stocking is expensive in the long run. Pike are a bit easier to manage for. If given the chance, pike will eat perch out of house and home as well, i've seen it were perch went from stunted to almost extirpated when pike got a hold. I don't think that will be the case in there but they'll nock them back a few notches.

jrs, hopefully that will be the case, so that a decent pike and perch fishery can be established with some big sizes of both species.

Thanks for the replies guys. I went out there with my bro, his wife and a bunch of kids on Sunday. We punched quite a few holes and only managed one bite. Looking down the whole I only saw tiny little (babies) perch. I talked to a few other guys out there fishing and everyone seemed to be having the same luck. So, I ripped over to Strubble lake about mid- afternoon, it was pretty slow there too, but at least we managed to get a few fish out of the ice.

Take care,
Walker

[Dust1n]

if they were smart theyd put a bunch of all male or all female pike in there

[WayneChristie]

whats with all the resurrected posts? 4 years old? some of you werent even born then!!!!