Quote:
Originally Posted by AK47
But how a well structured age class will happen if there is no harvest ( except hooking mortality)? They eventually will get stunted. Plus now we have 0 limit for Pike in CW, Travers and McGregor as well - why? Even more competition for food for all that walleye which nobody can harvest. I just do not understand the reasoning for this or what we are trying to achieve here. Travers was just fine, all you needed to do is to protect spawning grounds and introduce bait ban to deter shore fishing meatheads.
Pigeon lake used to be just skinny small walleye as well, now at least you have tags so people can keep few if they do not mind paying extra. I remember 8-10 years ago people complaining how difficult it is to catch decent size walleye in Pigeon.
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How did age classes get structured and normalize before people were fishing in these lakes? I'm pretty sure nature can look after itself on that one...
Stunting is not normal or unavoidable by any stretch. It requires the assumption that food/forage base is a major limiting factor. I would argue that other than a few rare examples (PCR), forage base is not a significant limiting factor to growth. The rebound at Pigeon is a good example of that. Quit taking all the big fish out because that's all you could keep, and "miraculously" there's more big fish to be caught.
I also don't understand your crusade against fishing with bait. I would STRONGLY oppose any such regulation changes. The stats above show that the difference in mortality between bait and baitless is not significant. The whole idea is for the angler to be able to catch fish. It should be up to the individual angler to make that choice, along with their fishing technique, not someone who feels it makes catching fish "too easy" for the "meatheads". That's the kind of elitism we don't need as outdoorsmen.
A few good high catch rate days in the spring, at obvious hot spots, isn't reason for a knee jerk reaction or criticism of the angler. It's normal, it happens every year. Wait until mid summer when the fish are spread out and all will be back to normal.
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