Ice Fishing has come a long way!

[Burbot Sherbet]

I enjoyed a lot of ice fishing as a kid in the 90’s in northern Alberta, then went on about a 20 year hiatus. Our gear consisted of heavy black braid tied to a piece of lath and a Len Thompson or maybe a mepps or a wiggler, and we often caught our limit. Since I got back into it a couple of years ago I’ve got with the times and picked up the fancy camera and flasher, in line reel ice rods and piles of fancy tungsten lures.

The flashy gear certainly adds a fun new dimension to the sport, and it’s certainly more comfortable having the option of a tent and heater, but I can’t shake the feeling that I caught more fish with less effort back in the day. Have the populations dropped that much or are the fish just more savvy to my efforts?

[HowSwedeItIs]

They really have dropped that much- seems like as soon as a lake recovers and has somewhat decent fishing it gets hammered again

[Drewski Canuck]

No idea where you are located, but if Edmonton, the "Whitefish Factory" of Wabamun has been closed for keeping fish for about 12 year now because of a pole oil spill.

Now it has been stocked with Walleye, and is plugged with fish that you cannot keep again!

Great experiment guys!! Wab used to have about 300 vehicles on a nice winter weekend. It is a big lake, and a lot of fish were caught there even with that kind of pressure, which included fishing well into April.

As for other lakes, take Missawawi by LLB for instance, well that Perch factory lost 8 feet of water, and winter killed. Then there is Frenchman, Upper and Lower Mann, Cache, etc all which have lost 8 - 10 FOW and basically winter killed out.

Now lets talk about Lake Isle. Closed for ever, and probably will NEVER Open again, because the Bios can't understand that the lake has a history of Partial Winter kill, so they close walleye because just when the population is recovering, it winter kills again!! So the Bios just will always keep Isle closed regardless of the fact it will do NO long term harm to allow retention of walleye at Isle if they just get wiped out by a winter kill anyway.

Given your post count, you are probably a Bio troll who is looking to survey attitudes of ice fishing success, so there you have it.

If you are not some Government Spook, then you can understand why a lot of good ice fishing lakes no longer hold fish: Long term drought.

The final thing you should might not have grasped in your absence from ice fishing, is that the introduction of walleye in lakes like Pigeon and Wabamun have collapsed the forage fish including Perch and Whitefish.

Drewski

[Burbot Sherbet]

I’ve never fished Wab or Pigeon, but I’ve heard that their handling has been a gongshow! I’m from the Barrhead area, so fished Clear, Thunder, Cross, Francis, Ste Anne for the most part and if we were going to travel a ways to a lake, we’d always go north. I’ve kind of kept to that since I’ve got back into it and it seems like there’s nothing left in Thunder or Clear.

I’ve never been crazy about catching walleye, as a kid I was more into jackfish and perch and now I’ve added burbs to the top of my list!

[Burbot Sherbet]

Also, I can assure you I’m not a government spook or a biologist plant. Lol

[Drewski Canuck]

Well welcome Burbot Sherbert. As for Thunder, it too has dropped water, and the perch died off in summer / winter kills.

A lot of our winter fishing is still very good. Just a case that many lakes that spread the fishing pressure out have been lost for the time being.

Hastings by Tofield was another one that winter killed due to low water. Used to be a lot of perch in there.

With the string of wet years lately, some of these lakes will recover water depth, and will need to be stocked with perch. That said, there are a few good lakes up north that also are worth a mention for perch fishing, just not on here.

Drewski

[HuyFishin]

Originally Posted by HowSwedeItIs

They really have dropped that much- seems like as soon as a lake recovers and has somewhat decent fishing it gets hammered again

us humans are so savage

[Burbot Sherbet]

I discovered the stock reports earlier this year and it seems like it’s pretty much all trout; do we just not have access to a perch hatchery in Alberta or are they too hard to farm? Seems like helping perch stocks recover should be a priority over filling up lakes with sterile trout as far as making self sustaining ecosystems go.

Also, I definitely prefer eating perch to trout so I’m a bit biased that way

[Burbot Sherbet]

Answered my own question, but now I have more questions!

Looks like in the 70’s and 80’s it was commonplace to take pike and perch straight from a lake that was doing well and “transplant” them into one that had winterkilled. For example, when Lessard lake einterkilled in 1976, 130 000 perch and 10 pike were transplanted from Clear lake and apparently by the 80’s Lessard lake was doing great again. Kinda makes sense from a genetics standpoint but would chance introducing disease I suppose. Maybe we could get some governmental support in starting this practice up again?

[JareS]

Over the decades, as fish populations in general have dropped, angler technology has increased. Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) in any particular lake may be similar to what it was years ago, but increased technology, access, information, etc. has allowed anglers to have similar success as before but with smaller populations.

I am speaking broadly, for Fisheries Management in general, not referring to any waterbody or area in particular.

No doubt there will be guys on this forum bringing up outlying examples or poorly managed lakes like the 100+ stunted Walleye they catch at Pigeon or wherever the hell it is, but its no conspiracy that fish populations are way down across the board compared to previous decades/ generations. Even in Saskatchewan.

[SNAPFisher]

Originally Posted by JareS

No doubt there will be guys on this forum bringing up outlying examples or poorly managed lakes like the 100+ stunted Walleye they catch at Pigeon or wherever the hell it is, but its no conspiracy that fish populations are way down across the board compared to previous decades/ generations. Even in Saskatchewan.

Stop making sense. Just stop it...

We should impeach our fisheries management!!