Quote:
Originally Posted by PerchBuster
Exactly, and as explained to me, he recognizes that in many cases the damage is already done, lots of lakes need a reset, perhaps additional stocking, time to recover and rebalance. It takes time, measured in years, for that sequence of events to be fulfilled. No quick fix but at least they recognize they have to start somewhere to fix what’s wrong. None of it will be perfect, lots of variables effecting levels of success and no guarantees of it. There are significant flaws and variances in the data, science and thus perhaps decision making. Mother Nature still has to cooperate while we try to play God to fix what’s broken.
|
I commented about using stocking to recover lakes faster. Walleye stocking isn't really effective for put and take type fishery like trout(due to a few different reasons) but we have seen stocking be extremely effective at recovering lakes and building a large population quickly. Examples being Wabamun, Lac La Biche, Pigeon, Pine Coulee etc. Instead of stocking 13 million fish in one lake like Wabamun try stocking 2 million in half a dozen lakes that are closed to retention for the recovery process right now. If it makes the recovery time 4 years instead of 10-15 then that is a huge advancement in keeping more of our waterbodies open.
He pretty much admitted that walleye don't do great in a number of our lakes which is one of the problems. Walleye have specific spawning requirements which many of our lakes aren't ideal for which makes for spotty recruitment. For example Wabamun historically has been stocked 3 times now and only this most recent one seems to have worked. That to me seems to be a red flag on focusing on walleye in all these lakes. Judging by the questions and comments from people regarding the degrading fishery state for pike, perch and whitefish and the responses I think they are going to start focusing a bit more on these species(and the obvious choice of lakes to do so would be the ones that the walleye don't do well in).
Time will tell what happens. I think they are playing on a slippery slope right now with their current practice of making more and more lakes C&R(and not doing enough netting on the remaining open lakes to realize that once they finally net them they will have to be recovered too...). The goal needs to be to keep as many lakes open as possible.