Go Back   Alberta Outdoorsmen Forum > Main Category > Fishing Discussion

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 01-17-2018, 10:51 AM
yetiseeker yetiseeker is offline
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 254
Default North Central Trout rivers being closed

All,

I attended the Edmonton Trout Club monthly meeting last night - Jan 16, 2018 where they had guest speakers from Alberta Fisheries talking about the proposed closures for the North Central Trout Recovery program.

I am not a member of the Edmonton Trout Club and would like to thank them for allowing me to sit in on the meeting.

The speakers discussed the plan for the potential river closured and the factors impacting the reduced numbers of fish they say they are seeing. The river systems they are closing - no longer proposing - and confirmed last night they are moving forward with a five year closure on include 7 watersheds; the Upper Ram system, the Upper Clearwater system, the Berland, the Kakwa, the Upper North Saskatchewan, the Upper Red Deer and the Pinto systems. This ISN'T just the main stems of the rivers, but the entire watersheds including the tributaries to these systems.

During their presentation, they provided a number of factors as part of their ongoing study. The main factors impacting of watersheds being: 1) Fragmentation of the watersheds - this is where culverts, roadways and other changes to the landscape cut off traditional migratory routes or oaths that allow fish to travel up and down systems to access cooler waters, spawning grounds etc, 2) Overfishing and Poaching - they gave the example that if you have a mortality rate of 10% on each catch and released fish, the compounding impact of catching that same fish would translate to a mortality rate of 90% x 90% x 90% - or 73% survival rate, 3) Erosion due to OHV and other back country activities, 4) Agricultural impacts such as livestock access further impacting sedimentation of our systems.

They then spoke of the studies they have undertaken to determine fish densities. If I recall properly, they employed 4 people and undertook 175 tests on the seven watersheds in question.

They spoke of the on-line survey that was filled out. They said approximately 2,000 respondents took the survey, and they received a 60% positive feedback that people would support the seven river closures being proposed. So, they are taking 1,200 Albertans (2,000 x 60%) to solidify or support their claim they have engaged the public and Albertans support this initiative or management technique. Out of 300,000 registered fisherman in Alberta.

They then spoke of potential other management techniques they are contemplating - such as restricting access to our river systems like they do in the Maritimes where only a certain umber of anglers are granted access on a given body of water for any given day, week, season. Issuing special licenses to control his access.

They spoke of their modeling technique to access the FSI - or Fish Sustainability Index which I wont go into a lot of detail, but it's their modeling technique to assess the health of a watershed with 20 different factors all multiplied out to determine a score. This score is then going to drive the assessment of our rivers moving forward and which watersheds can sustain retention, catch or release or closures moving forward.

They opened it up for questions. They were willing to answer questions, and did so for more than an hour. Then session ended sometime around ten. So, good on them for allowing discussion.

Questions were asked regarding engaging industry to repair culverts, etc. They said they have no jurisdiction over industry and talked about the federal fisheries act and department of the DFO. They said they are unable to make industry repair our damaged rivers. They can only "request" companies to do what is right. However, dependent of cost and the willingness of these companies to act, they would continue to work with industry in the coming YEARS to correct damages.

Questions were asked about rolling out catch and release techniques - single barbless regulations. They again said due to the fisheries act they couldn't legislate this. When asked why or how the BC government was able to legislate this, again they couldn't answer. When asked if they studied fish mortality rates when using bait, when using treble hooks, fly fishing only regulations - again they couldn't answer. They have lumped all mortality in with fishing hours - no differentiation between methods.

I also asked as to why they are deploying this strategy of closing our watersheds when retention of fish is or was still in place such as the Ram system. Catch and Release works - look at the North Ram - one of the most pressured or fished systems in Alberta and yet with a bait ban and catch and release put in place many years ago - continues to thrive.

When asked about their testing techniques to ascertain the fish densities in our systems, they couldn't provide and detail or clarity regarding the number of test, methods or sites in which they undertook for each watershed. They couldn't answer dispersement, time of year, etc. They seem to have gotten their answers they wanted and now the closures are moving forward. They said they "think" implementing the fishing moratoriums or closures should have a positive impact on these systems.

They have a slogan for this campaign - "Make Change Now" or something to that affect. They are closing our fisheries down because they can't or aren't doing anything except asking industry to repair the damages to our rivers that they have caused, but can't actually enforce it - or aren't willing to lower our GDP. So they are closing our rivers to fishing because that's all they can enforce.

When asked about the increased pressure that closing these seven watersheds will have on the remaining open watersheds, they say they are willing to accept the risk.

I asked about the respondents of the survey. If they gathered data regarding whether the respondents actually had fished ANY of the seven rivers they are closing - they said no. They didn't ask, so they didn't track. It was open to anyone who wanted to respond. So in the end, they are taking the responses of 1,200 Alberta Anglers out of the 300,000 registered in our province, and they are moving forward saying they engaged the public, and the public supports this initiative - regardless of the respondents knowledge or usage of the watersheds.

So - for all of those respondents who said they are in support of closing these fisheries, get ready for more and more pressure on your beloved rivers. As an Edmontonian, I'm going to be forced to head farther south to fish flowing water. It' going to translate to more fishing pressure in the remaining open watersheds. This pressure is only going to further intensify as more and more systems are being closed. They started with the Pembina last year, now seven more systems are being closed. Get ready for this to continue and more and more rivers get closed as they can only legislate the fisherman. To hell with industry - their untouchable.

So - what CAN we do?? Seeing as they the say "majority" of respondents agree with their plan - they're moving forward with it. A whole 1,200 people. We NEED to act and let them know this isn't acceptable. Changes need to be made - for f-sake - their the government. If they can't make this change, then we're all screwed.

They did say that these closures ARE moving forward UNLESS they get inundated with public pressure. If enough people act and express their disapproval then the closures could get rolled back or cancelled.

They provided a number of emails to QAB fisheries personnel which I'll include at the end of this. On a regular basis, the Alberta Outdoorsmen forum will show tens of thousands of people reading a thread on a good perch lake, or viewing pictures of a hike in trip to a high alpine lake. We need to action and let Alberta Fisheries know these closures aren't going to be accepted by us Albertans!! We NEED to surpass the 1,200 respondents that support this closure.

The emails provided are as follows:
Adrian Meinke@gov.ab.ca
Mike.Blackburn@gov.ab.ca
Jessica.Reilly@gov.ab.ca
Craig.Johnson@gov.ab.ca
Paul.Christensen@gov.ab.ca
John.Tchir@gov.ab.ca
Kayedon.Wilcox@gov.ab.ca

I plea with everyone who reads this thread to send an email expressing their concerns with this plan. Send one email and include all seven of the recipients - we need to let them know this isn't acceptable. My fear is closing these seven watersheds is only the beginning. Once this program takes hold, other watersheds will face increased pressure, and lead to more and more closures until everything gets shut down. That seems to be the only real plan they have right now.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 01-17-2018, 11:47 AM
NW Tradegunner NW Tradegunner is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Fort Saskatchewan
Posts: 234
Default

Three other ways of looking at what they're doing and why, is:

1) if you look at the provincial budget as a pie; health care, education, energy and infrastructure take up 90% of it. Anything to do with wildlife, the money is slim and every year they keep getting 0 increases or get cut back a little more. Their slice of the provincial pie is thinner than this line: l.

2) They can't do anything outright that costs extra money or interferes with the energy sector!


3) Rachael said, "We're not going to let the oil industry control us; like it did the Conservatives!"

Just wait for the next oil boom and see what happens to our wildlife when our population doubles! It's sad and I doubt if; at this point and time anything can save it!
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 01-17-2018, 12:25 PM
RavYak's Avatar
RavYak RavYak is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: West Edmonton
Posts: 5,174
Default

Would you look at that. Starts as a 5 river system proposal ends up 7, who saw that coming... At least 8 river systems across AB will now be closed next year(maybe more, I saw rumors of Old Man as well). Probably more to be added in the following years as well...

These closures are going to affect EVERY one of our river systems. The fishing pressure on these systems is already significant and now the pressure on the remaining open rivers will double(triple? maybe even more in some cases). The only thing these closures will result in is more closures...

I as well implore people to send the above mentioned individuals emails. If you filled out the survey and heaven forbid did so agreeing with the closures I would like you to sit back and reconsider the big picture.Then send an email to the above individuals stating you didn't realize the full repercussions of your actions.

Angling closures should have been the last resort. Not the first step...
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 01-18-2018, 09:27 AM
ESOXangler's Avatar
ESOXangler ESOXangler is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 2,588
Default

How does Montana maintain their fish stocks when they see incredible amounts of pressure. Probably by not allowing culverts and dusty roads all over the slopes! They have allowed all types of resource extraction with basically no real consequence! This infuriates me! I’ll be swinging by my MLA office.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 01-18-2018, 11:42 AM
wind drift wind drift is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: YEG
Posts: 716
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by RavYak View Post
Would you look at that. Starts as a 5 river system proposal ends up 7, who saw that coming... At least 8 river systems across AB will now be closed next year(maybe more, I saw rumors of Old Man as well). Probably more to be added in the following years as well...

These closures are going to affect EVERY one of our river systems. The fishing pressure on these systems is already significant and now the pressure on the remaining open rivers will double(triple? maybe even more in some cases). The only thing these closures will result in is more closures...

I as well implore people to send the above mentioned individuals emails. If you filled out the survey and heaven forbid did so agreeing with the closures I would like you to sit back and reconsider the big picture.Then send an email to the above individuals stating you didn't realize the full repercussions of your actions.

Angling closures should have been the last resort. Not the first step...

This is far from the first step. For over three decades, previous leadership and bureaucrats made decisions that imperiled our rivers and past bios did what basically amounted to rearranging deck chairs while the ship settled deeper into the water with a hole in the hull. Why didn't we get riled up and organized over hanging culverts, coal mines, lease roads, sediment, logging, OHVs, etc. 20 or more years ago?
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 01-18-2018, 11:46 AM
wind drift wind drift is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: YEG
Posts: 716
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ESOXangler View Post
How does Montana maintain their fish stocks when they see incredible amounts of pressure. Probably by not allowing culverts and dusty roads all over the slopes! They have allowed all types of resource extraction with basically no real consequence! This infuriates me! I’ll be swinging by my MLA office.
Montana's native trout are not doing well.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 01-18-2018, 11:52 AM
GraylingGuy GraylingGuy is offline
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 37
Default

Oil and Gas exploration and Forestry are at the root of habitat loss, yet I'm not allowed to even walk into a back-country river to fish any more because my few days a year has too large of an impact on the fisheries?
Industry is allowed to harvest forests to the rivers edge and build roads across nearly every creek and river in the province, but I can't go wade in the river with a fly-rod in my hand because my impact is too great?

I may not know a lot, but I know I sure as hell am not the one fragmenting our river systems by angling.
When I sit by a fire in the back-country I'm picking up dead-fall to burn, not harvesting the forest.
My impact as an angler on the landscape is seasonal at worst. Industry impacts on the landscape are pretty much permanent.

Yeah I can see why they need to keep anglers out of our rivers. We sure are bad for the landscape...

Perhaps they are thinking they can use it as ammo to fire towards industry. "Hey, look at the recreational users. They completely surrendered (read: we removed) their ability to use the resource. Maybe you guys could find it in your hearts to change the way you do things?" Not likely...

I fully support and practice catch and release fisheries (my own opinion, please don't blast me if you like to harvest). I think that should have been a first step to the issue. Not just yank the stairs out altogether. I think we have seen some success in its implementation on the South Ram. There is something about having the opportunity to go back to a river a year or 2 down the road and potentially catching that same fish. Maybe it was a personal best, and you caught it again and it was your new personal best. I remember a video I saw a few years ago of a guy recounting his trips (with photographic evidence) to the same hole year after year and catching that same special fish. Those are special memories and they last a lifetime. Now I may get to tell my kids of that one time I got to fish that one special hole on the one special stream a few years ago, but you may never get to have that opportunity, because politics.

Maybe this is just me, but I find it interesting that they are pushing many lakes to catch and release because they can't sustain a harvest (that's what all these recent meetings are about), yet it sounds like the message at this meeting the other night (I wasn't there, just based on the info in the original post) indicated that catch and release is bad? Is that not conflicting messaging?
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 01-18-2018, 12:33 PM
RavYak's Avatar
RavYak RavYak is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: West Edmonton
Posts: 5,174
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by wind drift View Post
This is far from the first step. For over three decades, previous leadership and bureaucrats made decisions that imperiled our rivers and past bios did what basically amounted to rearranging deck chairs while the ship settled deeper into the water with a hole in the hull. Why didn't we get riled up and organized over hanging culverts, coal mines, lease roads, sediment, logging, OHVs, etc. 20 or more years ago?
So what was the other steps taken so far?

Which of these issues have they already addressed?

So far we have only seen lip service and proposals...

The first step being taken is angling closures. Followed by supposed correction of these other issues.

Which is backwards and scientifically flawed. They supposedly did a bunch of work creating a baseline of the fish stocks in these rivers and now they are going to go 5 years then test them again at which point they will be comparing apples to oranges due to the angling closures. Things look good then they need to wait another 5 years so they can retest and compare to their baseline data as to whether it was the angling closures or other changes that made the difference.

It wreaks of poor decision making and it would have been much smarter and a faster process to just address these other issues first to see if they solved the problem then closing the fishing as a last resort if there was no other viable option.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 01-18-2018, 01:31 PM
wind drift wind drift is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: YEG
Posts: 716
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by RavYak View Post
So what was the other steps taken so far?

Which of these issues have they already addressed?

So far we have only seen lip service and proposals...

The first step being taken is angling closures. Followed by supposed correction of these other issues.

Which is backwards and scientifically flawed. They supposedly did a bunch of work creating a baseline of the fish stocks in these rivers and now they are going to go 5 years then test them again at which point they will be comparing apples to oranges due to the angling closures. Things look good then they need to wait another 5 years so they can retest and compare to their baseline data as to whether it was the angling closures or other changes that made the difference.

It wreaks of poor decision making and it would have been much smarter and a faster process to just address these other issues first to see if they solved the problem then closing the fishing as a last resort if there was no other viable option.
Previous steps:
Reducing bag limits
bait bans
season closures
alternate year stream closures (remember those years?)
barbless hooks
well intentioned, strongly worded recovery plans
culvert & sediment surveys
stream habitat surveys
habitat protection policies and guidelines (mostly not followed)
etc.,
etc....

Lip service, toothless paperwork, broken promises and failed careers. It appears we agree on all that. Did any of that piecemeal work change the trajectory? Not enough, and so here we are.

This isn't a science problem. It's a social problem. The solution is a social one, informed by science, for sure, but ultimately one that depends on all of us.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 01-18-2018, 01:38 PM
35 whelen 35 whelen is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: GRAND PRAIRIE
Posts: 5,720
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ESOXangler View Post
How does Montana maintain their fish stocks when they see incredible amounts of pressure. Probably by not allowing culverts and dusty roads all over the slopes! They have allowed all types of resource extraction with basically no real consequence! This infuriates me! I’ll be swinging by my MLA office.
I think Montana has the lowest population of all the lower 48 states probably less than a million people

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 01-18-2018, 03:11 PM
Pikebreath Pikebreath is offline
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 1,257
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ESOXangler View Post
How does Montana maintain their fish stocks when they see incredible amounts of pressure. Probably by not allowing culverts and dusty roads all over the slopes! They have allowed all types of resource extraction with basically no real consequence! This infuriates me! I’ll be swinging by my MLA office.
Comparing Montana to Alberta trout fisheries is an Apples to Oranges comparison.

As stated earlier in this thread, Montana's native trout in freestone streams are really not doing that well either,,, Most of Montana's blue ribbon fishery are based primarily on introduced rainbows and browns in tailwater fisheries and spring creeks.

We have far fewer miles of these type of stable prime trout habitat in Alberta. The large majority of Alberta's trout freestone streams subject to wide variance in seasonal flows and temperatures.

Also in Montana's favour is milder winters which translates to significantly less winterkill than here in Alberta hence Montana's streams will have a naturally higher carrying capacity.
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 01-18-2018, 03:16 PM
RavYak's Avatar
RavYak RavYak is offline
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: West Edmonton
Posts: 5,174
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by wind drift View Post
Previous steps:
Reducing bag limits
bait bans
season closures
alternate year stream closures (remember those years?)
barbless hooks
well intentioned, strongly worded recovery plans
culvert & sediment surveys
stream habitat surveys
habitat protection policies and guidelines (mostly not followed)
etc.,
etc....

Lip service, toothless paperwork, broken promises and failed careers. It appears we agree on all that. Did any of that piecemeal work change the trajectory? Not enough, and so here we are.

This isn't a science problem. It's a social problem. The solution is a social one, informed by science, for sure, but ultimately one that depends on all of us.
How are those recovery steps? The reduced limits and bait bans are the only ones that would even affect the fish stocks. The rest like I say is lip service and paperwork and a waste of tax payers money if not used properly...

This program outlined a number of very real problems that are neither scientific nor social problems. They are environmental habitat problems that need to be fixed with a shovel, net pen and paper...

They need to literally go out and fix culverts, fix sediment issues, fix wintering and spawning locations damaged by both nature and man etc. That is how they will recover these fish stocks. Wasting time and money on useless reports and closures etc is nothing but wasting time and money...

C&R regs have recovered many of these waterbodies and other waterbodies in past years. I don't for a second believe temporary angling closures fix anything other then perhaps providing a slight recovery period after a catastrophic event. Permanent angling closures would help the fish stocks but does nothing for anglers and I don't think they are necessary at this time. Temporary angling closures will just make it appear like the program was a success by slightly inflating populations estimates for the next test after which they will reopen fishing and the pressure will continue to have the same effect as before...

I don't know why this is difficult for some to understand but angling closures are not the solution. In some cases increased angling pressure could actually help these rivers. For example thinning out the bull trout population on the kakwa would help bring back the grayling population which was the reason for its closure...
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 01-18-2018, 04:23 PM
muzzy muzzy is offline
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: St. Albert, AB
Posts: 1,178
Default

Interesting that Montana does have a few national parks in mountains that get just a tad of traffic many of them fisherman Yellowstone gets 3.8 million tourists a year( granted some if it is in wyoming) and glacier gets 2.2 million tourists. Surprised theres any fish there
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:56 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.5
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.