I go to the Costco River. The fish are already cleaned and there's no size or possession limit! :sHa_shakeshout:

And see, here is the crux of the issue in my opinion. The big picture environmental impact of increased support for a commercial fishery of unknown ethics, is likely more than keeping a few fish from a carefully managed recreational fishery.

???

Think about it, the commercial fishery caused more problems in the lakes that I frequent than recreational fishing did. Sure they arent coming out of your pet trout stream, but those fish in Costco are coming from somewhere. Either farmed or caught, and I personally dont know the details, but I'd be willing to bet that whatever industry provides those fish has a bigger environmental impact than me occasionally frying up a few Rockies.

Again???

Suppose the tens of thousands of Albertans who buy fish at Costco decided to get a fishing rod instead and hit the lakes and rivers to get their fish protein. I doubt there would be any "Rockies" for anyone to have a fry up after one year.

Touche!

That is a red herring response. Tens of thousands who buy fish at Costco or anywhere else for that matter, are not going going to go hit the rivers and lakes for their fish protein. It simply won’t happen…until the apocalypse closes all the stores, in which case we will have greater problems

The problem lies with management thinking is by using a basis that isn’t pristine/original population statistics but rather a lower standard of one that had been affected by people.

We effectively use a low bar for what the fishery could be and subtract from there.

When you vote for mediocrity, you get mediocrity.

Don

There is not a single political party in Alberta or Canada that puts any effort into improving fisheries. You are not going to vote for a different party and get different results

We for for the options brought forward and none are even mediocre in my opinion

Alberta anglers don’t have any lobbying power and don’t have enough representation/support for issues to even be acknowledged. It’s not a left or right thing it’s anglers/fisheries are not even on the political radar

It’s going to take a lot more than a party switch

There is a new group that was formed hoping to have a stronger voice to get the government to listen:

https://www.thetrouttrust.com/

Sorry to tell you but as soon as they went with the name trout trust it was set up to fail. This is a group that is focusing towards a small group of anglers instead of all anglers. They will be viewed as a special interest group and never built enough support to become acknowledged enough by politicians to see real change

The fact of the matter is anglers make up a relatively small portion of the population and when segregated into to smaller groups the voice becomes a whisper

I don’t doubt it’s all with good intentions but results will be lacking

Smokey Buck is right!
 

Same applies to hunters so what he have to do is join forces with groups that have similar interests, such as torism, water users that sort of thing.

I'm assuming that groups that want to keep the water levels up will enhance the fishery.

I can't think of any competing interests that are opposed to ours. I agree this is not a partisan issue.

Have we got suggestions that we can put forward to the politicians. The ideal suggestion, is free, easy to do and that you can blame the other political party for not doing.

Yup hunters are also divided into multiple groups hence why they are getting no where. Hunters are a horrible example of in fighting and throwing their own under the bus well fighting over scraps

Really you want representation that is fishing only if you are tackling fisheries related issues but you need it to represent fishing as a whole. It cannot be fly fishing focused, C&R only, or primarily focused on a species here in Alberta

Yes there is species specific and special interest fishing groups that are successful but there is not that culture here in Alberta.

But this is a waste of typing because the effort for change and willingness to approach things realistically is lacking