Quote:
Originally Posted by pikeman06
You can argue all you want boys but if you think all these walleye "factories" are a good thing or that it will lead to a healthy sustainable fishery you just don't know so don't try to tell us albertans that grew up and fished these lakes over the past 20 or 30 years that what we have now is good. Just because you pull out your boat twice a year and hammer the half starved and frozen minnow fed wallies like there's no tomorrow doesn't mean you are a fish catching machine. I miss the schools of little perch when you launched your boat and the little jackfish scooting out of the weeds when you pull up on shore. Those fish were the future and keeping a few perch or a pike or two made sense because the lake was alive with them. Tell me what you see now? Nothing. Wallies ate em all and they ain't coming back. Sheez done. Wabamum is the proof in the pudding. On a zero retention lake with no winter kill it's just like pigeon now. Can't blame that one on the anglers. I hope the natives net the be jeezus out it. Shame to see such a big fertile water body reduced to a toilet bowl full of look alike wallies starving to death.
|
I would agree 30-40 years ago but not 10-20 years ago range for most lakes. The fact is by the 2000 (that was 17 years ago remember ). lots of lakes were fished out pretty bad and will never be what they were in the 70's and 80's. It's not just the walleye that kill all the other fish it's the crazy fishing pressure.
There is one lake in know of that has never came around on the numbers of walleye like most of the other lakes every one is talking about and the perch and pike fishing there is worse than ever. If it were loaded with walleye right now everyone would be blaming that but it not. It's loaded with every day of the week fisherman. The schools of 1000"s of perch I remember seeing are gone, all the little pike up in the reeds you speak of are gone and it's not because of the walleye as they never did come back. It's the thousands and thousands of fishing hours the lake sees.
Any one else remember when lakes like slave only had pike and we would catch no walleye? That lake is loaded with fish now, it went way over to the walleye side of things to the point you would hardly ever catch a pike. Now look at it it is staring to balance its self out and large pike are now being caught at a rate I have never seen. The kicker is that lake is still polluted with walleye and yet the trophy pike fishing has come around in the last 5 years suddenly. Why? I don't know but it could start happening in other lakes as well especially now the commercial fishing has been shut down. The story is not over, there is more going on than people understand and things will change.