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What legislation could be applied, on which access was determined on whether water is in a frozen or liquid state? |
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The uncropped lakes are in balance between predators and prey. Curiously enough, all the predators are large, the prey small. When a new predator is introduced (trout), it will turn to readily available larger bugs working it way down to smaller and smaller insects as the larger bugs are removed or very limited. Some insects are able to avoid this predation through concealment. Gomphus dragon and chironomids are examples. One only has to spend 100 days a year on water for 50 years to see this occur. What does happen when bugs are few is the catch rate collapses. Unlike the accepted horse**** that they are hungry and will hit anything, animals can’t waste energy this way. They will wait patiently for a abundance of food resources. Failure to do so where energy is expended with no return means you will die. Many of the insects I saw 50 years ago have diminished. Cow Lake was a wonderful example. Stocking of perch nearly removed all the bugs like caddis. As the perch died due to winterkill, the caddis slowly returned . At one tine the hatch of dragon flies meant a touring of Hiway 752 past the lake killed a bunch of adults. Now, they are rarely seen. The leeches in Crimson Lake were famous for their abundance and size. Well, the perch got them too. Sometimes environmental conditions decimate bug population. After the flood of 1995, there were few bugs left in the Oldman/Livingstone. Took sometime for the bugs to return. Presently, as WD cleans out the fish, bug life will explode making catching easier of the last few fish. By the way, humans are one of the few organisms on earth who do things without a return on food, sex, shelter. Don |
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Be well! |
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Skeptical I am, One thing I’ve noticed for many years, you can have big or many but not both. Both only occurs in Alberta when multiple years of winterkill remove enough fish to finally allow the new stocking to grow providing there are enough bugs left. If you look at the stocking numbers previously posted you must come to the realization that our trained govt professionals took a number of years to finally come to the same conclusion. However, that still begs the question of reducing or eliminating food resources through stocking which is evident in lake after lake. This evidence would be difficult to acquire utilizing years of research. I recall doing a bug count on Stauffer Creek trying to figure out why trout populations were dropping. A complete waste of time. Professionals discounted the numbers although I used the same technique they utilized. Am I gonna do the research, nope. I’m 75, I’m tired. Watching the Alberta fishery slide into abyss is kinda tough. Finally got a theme song for Alberta fishery. “ And another one bites the Dust”. Still shovelling - sometimes even snow. Don |
Dr Post at the U of C has done these kind of studies on virgin(fishless) lakes in the Merritt BC region.
It doesn't take long for trout to remove most of the largest prey items like big sedges, the largest scuds, diving beetle larva etc. Fish grow incredibly fast when all the bugs are available. Once the bugs are gone, the growth rate rapidly decreases. More trout, the bigger the impact. The same thing happened in Sparrow's Egg lake in Kananaskis. The pre-fish bug populations were incredible. Today it is a shadow of what it once was, and the trout growth rates have declined accordingly. You can go to Marl lake behind Elkwood campground and see for yourself the amazing invertebrate populations in the water where there are no trout. The 2 lakes are in the same neighborhood. In a perfect world, a big lake study to find suitable stocking densities would be nice. The cost and labor required ensure it will never happen in Alberta. The government can't even bother to do some science on the so-called blue ribbon Bow River....even back when the government was flush with money. |
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My point is to make it clear no one is allowed on the lake for whatever reason. Make it unlawful. If someone breaks the law, Trespasses and drowns then there is no risk of a lawsuit which is the reason for this thread. As well...buy a bunch of heavy plastic barrels, posted danger, thin ice stay off lake. Anchor all around the aeration area. How about we think of a solution instead of complaining about the problem...or far worse...complain about people complaining about the problem. :thinking-006: |
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Now, should we not expect more pressure on Put-and-Take fisheries if they are aerated, with bigger fish available earlier than the stocking truck's arrival? Be careful what you wish for...if the ACA finds the money to spend aerating your favourite stocked reservoir, you might find yourself in a crowd with some competition for stocked trout. |
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Aerating your favourite Put-and-Take stocked fishery may not be possible ($) or sensible, given the ACA's mandate. There's no doubt in my mind that the ACA receives complaints from amateur fishery biologists on a regular basis. |
^^^^^^
Tall horse! |
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I've been called far worse things by far better men than you, friend. The ACA has a budget and a mandate. Sorry if your favourite man-made reservoir won't be aerated this winter and you have to wait for the stocking truck to arrive. Part of the 2021 license I will buy will help pay for stocked Put-and-Take fisheries. You're welcome. |
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Your comments on this thread have been both ignorant and insulting. Don, and every other Albertan who pays taxes or buys a fishing license, has every right to raise issues and challenge our government experts, and / or those accessing our license dollars. I am going to assume that unless someone has a PhD in fish biology, their opinion does not matter to you, yet here you are sharing your opinion with the rest of us... please feel free to post your membership number to the American Fisheries Society. As neither my current degree, nor my pending one, are in "fisheries" feel free to denigrate and / or ignore the following comments (I am sure that most here would prefer the latter). I have been following this issue for many years, and am familiar with all the reasons Police Outpost has been, and continues to be, a complete sh*t-show. I do not blame the ACA for this decision, yet I do not support it either. Any solution involving legislative changes would be years in the making, so that is pretty much a useless endeavour for this issue, and this location; however, there is existing legislation about fishing through the ice on beaver ponds iirc. So, maybe that could be modified in only two years. Someone earlier mentioned using anchored barrels; I think this is very close to being both practical and adequate, except for the fencing requirement prescribed. I believe that anchored, heavily weighted buoys would be better, as they could be designed to stay upright regardless of ice conditions, and fencing could be attached directly each fall, if not left on all year. I feel like sometimes both NGOs (ACA) and Gov bios fail to ask for support from the community to just get things done. Let's say that the buoy fencing idea is practical, but too expensive for the ACA to fund directly. Why does the ACA not ask the local (or Provincial) fisheries related non-profits to chip in? AFGA Zones have habitat project dollars available, as do various chapters of TU, local fish and game clubs, etc. We raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in this province every year, and many would see this as money well spent - providing quality fishing opportunities for Albertans. If you had gone to Police Outpost at any time this year, or to Bullshead earlier this decade before it began to annually winter kill, you would have seen the interest people have in these opportunities; as described it was packed! More people than I have ever seen there before. Now, I am not one for crowds, but there is lots of room on that lake and at no time did I feel like it was too busy (other than the boat launch and parking lot). I would hazard a guess that MANY of those people would be willing to contribute to a fishery such as Police has recently become. I have been involved in multiple roles with Fish and Game clubs in Southern Alberta since I came here in 2004. Only once has anyone from Gov inquired about assistance with a project, and in the end they never asked for help, despite assurances that I would personally take it on. In my former life in BC, I was involved from conception with a very large, very expensive elk relocation project. That project had buy in, and extensive assistance (both financial and volunteer labour) from the local fish and game club from day one, and later the local First Nation. That buy in made the project acceptable to (and widely supported by) the general public. The project ran for >15 years and has become one of the most successful ungulate reintroductions in modern times. While managing volunteers can be an issue, many projects are virtually impossible without them. Had the biologist who spearheaded that project tried to keep it "within government" it would have failed, 100%. All he had to do to get the project going was to ask for help. Fish and game clubs used to be widely called upon by local bios to work on projects throughout NA. Now such partnerships are very much the exception, instead of the rule. The result is a fishing and hunting population with very little "investment" in their sport(s), other than the vast $$ spent on gear. That is unfortunate, and IMO is getting worse every year. People WANT to help, they want to be involved; why not let them? |
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If you consider a dissenting opinion means ignorance and insults, I'm truly sorry for you. I believe the ACA does the best that it can, with its limited resources, that it's very easy for people to criticize the ACA's work based on their personal wants or complaints, and that the ACA has far larger concerns. The ACA cannot take directions from amateur fishery biologists or anglers with an axe to grind about missing "the good old days." |
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Shep.... If you wish to send me your email address, I will send you the copies of the PDF prepared by the Alberta Govt from 2003>present of stockings of trout in Alberta. Don |
Drove by a sewage lagoon the other day with aeration.
No big signs or other exclusion devices. Don |
Don,
My memory isn't great but I recall when the ACA was concerned about liability issues around aerators a few years back and a number of decent stocked lakes lost trout to winterkill. A lawyer ( bless his heart, they're not all bad) from the Edmonton Trout club said he would step up and take responsibility of any liability issues regarding Spring Lake. From what I recall he was convinced that a 100 year old law would not be enforceable ( probably not the correct "legal" term cuz I'm not a lawyer ) if there was proper signage to warn people and it would be thrown out of court. Thanx to him and an agreement with ACA on this particular lake, the aeration took place as usual and there are still a couple good sized trout left in the lake. (It's not the same lake it was three or four years ago due to much more pressure and poaching but still a reasonable lake for a put and take. Never having fished Police Outpost I can't speak for it's merits but it does sadden me when another QF is shut down for what I'll call political reasons. |
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I mentioned barrels as an option but the point was we should be able to brain storm a solution that is practical. I envision a sealed heavy duty plastic barrel fill with closed cell foam so a bullet won’t since it and such the concrete block weight would be too heavy to lift and chain the surface to prevent being cut as sadly we must take into account vandals. Still...something should work. Don...good catch on the sewage lagoon that is aerated. Maybe a green company like the wind generators down south could sponsor both the barrels with logos and the green power to run the aerators. |
The Alberta Conservation Association has been told it could be held liable for accidents on a lake it has aerated. (CBC )
FYI From a 2016 article.
Ice fishermen could face manslaughter charge for drilling holes in a frozen lake Alberta Conservation Association warns aeration law is severe if a person falls through ice. Alberta's ice fishermen could be treading on thin ice with the law. The Alberta Conservation Association is warning anglers of the potential legal ramifications of drilling holes on a frozen lake and casting a line during Alberta's long winter months. "The likelihood of being charged is very low, but the severity of being charged is very high. If you do get charged, then manslaughter is the likely result," said ACA President Todd Zimmerling. For years ACA members have aerated Alberta's shallow lakes but have scaled back the program after a warning from their lawyers. Zimmerling says the agency could be held liable too, even charged with manslaughter, if someone were to accidentally fall through ice on a lake that is being aerated. "It raised a lot of flags for us," Zimmerling said. "No one has been charged with relation to holes in ice, but people have been charged in relation to holes in the ground. So excavation (and aeration) are under the same section of the code. And that's really been the issue. "That's a lot to risk for anybody." Zimmerling thought posting signs warning of the potential dangers of drilling was enough to ensure their due diligence under the law, but they have been told otherwise. Zimmerling says the language used in section 263 of the Criminal Code is so prohibitive that the ACA is making an effort to have it changed. "We'll approach the federal government and see whether or not they can make some changes to the wording. "We're not the only ones that aerate ponds, so there are a lot of groups out there with potential liability." In the meantime, the ACA has modified their surface-aeration plan, adding platforms and temporary fences at their excavation sites. Of the more than 800 fishable lakes in Alberta, many are prone to winterkill. An early freeze, combined with a heavy snowpack, can rob a lake of oxygen, and Zimmerling says aeration is an important tool to keep fish populations viable. "It was frustrating, because we were initially looking at new lakes that we could aerate, and get more fishing opportunities for Albertans." CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices| And the actual law:263 (1) Every one who makes or causes to be made an opening in ice that is open to or frequented by the public is under a legal duty to guard it in a manner that is adequate to prevent persons from falling in by accident and is adequate to warn them that the opening exists |
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During the last aeration kerfuffle, the ACA, Alberta Parks and Fish and wildlife were able to aearate all the lakes in NW Alberta. Took cooperation. The same bunch in Central and southern Alberta failed to cooperate and the fish died. You and I suffered because they can’t work together. Same situation happening at Police. Parks has equipment bought for areation and will not use it cause they have to pay for power. ACA was likely involved due to Parks cheapness. Like the last time, fish will die, “Ever wanta take a bunch behind the barn and spank them?” Don |
ACA and the bogey man.
They seem to be the only ones spooked. Cities and towns have open sewage aeration hole Golf course east of Slyvan just off highway aerates. Outfalls from dams are open water Sewage outflow and drainage water outflows fro cities are no issue. Natural provides open spring holes in a lot of lakes. Lots of examples. Don |
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Sask - probably the most akin to Alberta in terms of numbers of aerated lates http://www.leaderpost.com/sask+minis...168/story.html Man and FLIPPR - tough comparison and a totally different organization but again, no issues I can find https://flippr.ca/lake-development/ |
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We should be able to do something similar with Police, or other lakes. |
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If you manage a lake for quality sized fish to attract people from all over, why not? Is there not enough put and take lake’s with ice fishing allowed around all ready? |
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