Alberta VS Sask
 

Just wondering what everybody’s thoughts are on how fisheries are handled in each province. I happen to live close enough to the border I can manage to get a cross and take advantage of the 80$ out of province license in sask. I by far spend more of my time on Southern Alberta lakes, due to travel times, however I’ve been noticing a large difference in fishing quality. Most of my pbs this year have come from sask in far smaller amounts of time fished. More of a discussion about the differences and the positives an negatives of both because it feels like one is doing far better.

It's less of a challenge to manage fisheries and resources in Sask as there is 10 times the water and a fraction of the fisherman.

I don't recall the exact statistics, but it is something close to that.

Manitoba is better still, only been a few times, but it seems so much better to me.

When you put the numbers like that it makes more sense. However sask has an aggressive stocking program. Alberta seems to be against stocking walleye and it’s confusing, I pay 80$ for my sask license and I’m 2 hours away from 2 lakes with 1m stocked walleye.

I believe Sask had 15,000 licensed anglers, Alberta had 300,000 licensed anglers.
Sask has 50k fish bearing water bodies, Alberta about 1.2k.

That should easily answer the question.

I live on the border(AB side) and only buy the SK license. I can't fathom wasting my time and $ in an almost zero retention province with an even poorer trout stocking program. Many of the stocked trout waters on the SK side are seeing fisheries gearing them to more of a trophy type experience by reducing limits from 5 to 3 and enacting size restrictions to only one fish over 43cm allowed and its working well. We are catching alot more bigger fish and seeing more mature fish on the camera while fishing. As for pike, walleye & perch well there is no comparison, SK has it hands down. Unfortunately AB falls well behind what is available in terms of waterbodies available to fish as it has so few opportunities available in comparison(800 natural lakes and rivers when compared with SK's 110,000!!). It's completely understandable comparing the differences just looking at those numbers along with the number of anglers as well.

Thanks Penner.

Yep, another province comparison bitch fest post. :rolleye2:

That's okay, they can go fish SK and leave more for us in AB :)
Have at it!

I live in sk and my wife is from northern Ontario. Sk and Ontario have the same mentality when it comes to what fish you can keep. Keep the smaller
Fish and leave the big ones, which are the breeders, in the lake. All those fish that are too small to keep in AB and get thrown back in the lake... how many die afterwards? A game warden was asked “how many lake trout survive after being pulled up through the ice from a great depth” his answer “about 10%”. I am no expert on the matter and I don’t know if he was either, but if it’s true...that’s a lot of fish dying just because they were too small to keep.

Yup...and albertans kinda act like Vikings when it comes to things until it's all gone then sit back and complain....sometimes I simply shake my head when it's a one sided conversation about how bad the guberment has screwed up the fisheries when I sit and look right at the problem complaining for the most part....if we had more fish cops you would see a heck of a lot more fish but that's another complaining thread for another day....not saying Saskatchewan hasn't got its fair share of crooks there too but it doesn't impact the fishery due to lower population and a heck of a lot more lakes...

I was not bitching I was curious to see what anyone else’s experiences were. You are the reason I hate asking questions on the internet. Since you seem to be such a nice person can you explain why a province with 300,000 anglers doesn’t have a noticeable stocking program to help assist with the fisheries and a province with 15000 can find a way to do it. Another honest question, why does Alberta seem to be the only province who only allow you to keep large fish. Are we not decimating the spawning population of walleye by keeping three large fish? Again I’m just asking. I’m trying to educate myself on this stuff not start fights.

I completely agree with the attitude of entitlement. But I’m curious the sizes of fish we are allowed to keep seem backwards to maintaining good natural populations of fish, including numbers of fish in a lot of cases.

Thanks I had no idea the variance in waterbodies. Hadn’t taken that one into consideration.

I do agree there trust me....I like slot sizes....wee ones live to grow...big ones mature to spawn/reproduce.

But dam given what we are facing with our population, criminals and lack of fish cop numbers perhaps a draw for all species and which have to fall into a slot size too?

Hey I agree. I’m not opposed to a slight raise in license if it went directly into resources, I’ve seen one conservation officer in 4 years. Heck a big raise.

Yea I hadn’t really considered lake numbers / anglers like that before, what about albertas size requirements for harvestable fish. I’m not a marine biologist so I may be wrong but it seems like we harvest from the spawning populations of fish with the size requirements set out. I just wonder why most other provinces go the opposite way with their sizes. Or is it again just simply the pressure on the fishery regardless of the harvest size?

Like has been mentioned angler numbers vs body of water are very different so to expect the same is crazy

But it would also be crazy to ignore the fact Alberta could improve on its fisheries management. In my opinion yes Alberta could adapt management tools used elsewhere with good results but we will never have the same C&k opportunity. Albertans should be realistic about what is available

That said I am a firm believer that low limit, short C&K season, slot limit and maybe yearly quota well spreading the pressure across all bodies of water could be realistic. I don’t see liberal limits ever being possible

This conversation has been beaten to death though and like many things most will not consider a middle ground as feasible. Alberta fisherman seem to be split into the “It’s too fragile to go beyond tags/C&R” or “if we have slots/X min restrictions we can keep a far limit”

Alberta does face tougher challenges but we can definitely improve upon our fisheries management

Back In 2012 there were 185,000 Angling licenses sold in Saskatchewan. I don't have an update on the number.
Let's be honest in the comparison.

But a hell of a lot more lakes in saskabush.....not man made crap lakes in cities....real lakes....and ya got a population of a million give or take....ya lucky bugger:)

Only time I get over on that side is if I drift over the water line on cold lake....yup I am a evil covid traveller jumping from province to province:sHa_sarcasticlol:

Some lakes we use to fish I was lucky to see another boat for days on end and enjoy many shore lunches....mmmmmm shore lunches.

Yup you are correct 180,000ish licenses. Still ~half of what we have here in Alberta and number of fish bearing lakes does not compare.

Also consider that we are losing some fish baring lakes between Smokey Lake and Bonnyville with low water levels.

This is a seemingly never ending topic on this forum, if you do a search, you'll find DAYS worth of reading, so when guys get a little testy when it comes up, you'll understand why.

AB focuses it's stocking program on trout. I'd like to see some walleye stocking, but I feel it would largely be put and take due to the limitations of the waterbodies themselves.

Beyond the number of anglers and the number of waterbodies, the next biggest factor working against AB, is the productivity/carrying capacity of the lakes. Small southern AB reservoirs are an order of magnitude, maybe several orders of magnitude, less productive than lakes like Last Mountain or Diefenbaker. They simply don't have the same ability to support the biomass. Smaller size combined with lower temps, fluctuation water levels, less forage, and less vegetation equals slower growth rates and fewer fish.

The reason for the min size requirement is to ensure that a fish has reached maturity/spawning age, and hopefully had the chance to spawn at least once, before it's harvested. The very high angling pressure and small fish populations means that any legal size fish are quickly removed from the system. If you remove fish before they've reached spawning age and there's no recruitment, or not enough recruitment, the system collapses. It's more along the lines of the trophy hunting mentality - you don't shoot the small bucks if you want them to become big bucks and pass on their genes.

Absolutely right. I find it strange too removing the larger fish BUT if you research you'll find some interesting research out there on total bio-mass contribution towards recruitment. An example is the difference in opinion between Lake Erie fisheries managers in Canada and the US. US biologists claim that the total bio-mass of spawning walleye far outweighs the smaller percentage of production by protecting larger individual fish. Can't really argue with their take on it when the population keeps increasing to the point they have the best walleye fishery in the world nowadays and produce more 28"+ fish than can be imagined. Cold Lake lake trout would almost seem to support that theory too. All you can keep is 30" + fish and the lake produces numbers of fish that are incredible for a lake that sees no shortage of angling pressure. I surely am no biologist and have no insight from within AB fisheries as I don't know any AB biologists but I am sure it must be a very interesting position to be in given the angling pressure vs available resource in AB. I only know we enjoy eating fish and those opportunities are extremely limited in AB with the exception of stocked trout. I can catch them in SK too so I do 90% of my fishing there.

Better check your numbers again

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I've always thought this was the answer, and for the northern part of the province it probably is. However, if you look at the two most densely populated cities in Sask (Regina and Saskatoon) they have relatively few lakes close by to fish. Saskatoon for example has less lakes within an hour than Calgary would. Blackstrap is the closest lake to Saskatoon, and anytime I ice fished there it was busier than any lakes close to Calgary in the winter. Somehow though, Blackstrap fished way better than any of our nearby reservoirs and they also have fairly liberal retention limits. I also always wondered how it could sustain so many perch being harvested, but it seems to keep producing despite the pressure.

I live in alberta and own a cabin in saskie now as well. Enjoy fishing both equally. I love to eat fish but one a day for me is just fine, perch being the exception. The main difference I see is Alberta's tendency to get on a bite and live there till there is nothing left and not leave till you got "a limit". Jyst my two cents. There's mortality with catch and release too and cycling through fish to get one big spawned then clunk her on the head isn't sound management unless supplementing with stocking programs.

I’d never thought of comparing it to hunting in that way. I see what your saying.

Scenery and settings are important to myself for fishing. If I could only pick one province to fish for the rest of my life, it would be Alberta. Until Saskatchewan develops mountains that is....

Agree fishing in the foothills and mountains is a tough one to beat. I was fishing on Magline lake one day went 5 hours without a strike didn’t even realize 5 hours went by. Sun setting on calm NB1 lake on a summer evening is a close second for me.

Can’t argue with the sentiment there. I try and get out to the crowsnest at least twice a summer for the scenery an some fly fishing. Little more to offer scenery wise then southern Alberta 😂

Amen to that.

and gets a nice coastal water too but that would mean loosing a lot of Alberta:)

hmm bc has a lot to offer fishing wise....just a thought.

:thinking-006:

Yes I’d pick B.C.
If it was included. But it’s not.