I'm not looking for you to post the names of great lakes; saying that you know of 3 or more is enough for me. I'm crazy but I still have a few marbles...
My point, and the point of several other posters here is that there are very few lakes managed as quality lakes and hundreds that are put and take. I believe the there is a huge discrepancy between the percentage of people that want quality fisheries and the percentage of quality fisheries that we have. We don't want to eliminate put and take, we just want a more equal opportunity.
I'm also not convinced that the majority of fishermen want a 5 fish limit. This poll is an example. And yes, we've already discussed that this poll does not represent all fishermen in Alberta but I think the sample is pretty good. It really is surprising to me how many people on this forum would want a 1 fish limit or total C&R (of course, not to the exclusion of put and takes which I think most can agree are necessary) and I think if you were to poll Alberta fishermen who target stillwater trout you would find a very similar trend; that we are tired of lots of little fish and would have a much better experience catching and keeping a few less fish if it means that those fish are bigger.
And finally... HunetDave, let me use your own analogy of hunting. You go out hunting whitetails and during the whole hunting season, all you see are spike bucks. Now you want some meat so you shoot one of the spikers out of the 5 tags that you have. That's enough for you but many people believe it's their god-given right to take all 5, whether they use them or not.
Each year, you go farther and farther to try to find a decent whitetail buck and they are getting really hard to find, even in the more isolated areas which aren't nearly as isolated as they used to be. You remember when you were younger and there were less hunters, when a nice buck was 140 and weighed 300lbs and sometimes there were some real monsters in the fields around your place. Now, everyone sees a 3x3 buck and thinks it's huge.
Sick of every buck getting shot before it can get bigger and sick that bucks can't get old enough to get "whily" the sport is out of it for you. Sure, kids and grandparents still have fun shooting spikers but you were hoping for more. So you suggest to to the hunters in your area that perhaps they could reduce the harvest of bucks to 3 or 1 or maybe even just 1 buck that needs to have at least 4 points on one side. Well, the hunters are enraged! You're obviously trying to make hunting big bucks easier! You try to tell them that that is not the case. There just aren't any big bucks because they all get shot. NONSENSE! they cry! There are still one or two 3x3 bucks around and one guy even saw a 5x5 (of course, when word got out where it was, 20 hunters descended upon that bush and wiped every buck out by the end of the next weekend).
Besides, the poor kids and grandpa's won't be able to shoot as many spike bucks if you limit the number. You tell them that there will still be spike bucks around, but they now might be able to shoot something bigger as well. Nope! If you let more bucks get big, then you're just making it easier. And kids like to shoot spikers, they don't need to shoot a bigger buck. Sorry. If you want to shoot a big buck, you'll have to go to Sask, Manitoba, or B.C. or go WAY up into the mountains where no one can get at them. You don't like it, go somewhere else fella, cause here we like to shoot deer, and lots of them.
I realize C&R doesn't work in this analogy but I hope you can better understand the quality argument from the other side.
Cheers.
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