Classified Waters - Update/Summary

[Parker Hale]

Back in September 2022 I started a thread discussing the BC classified water system to give you Alberta fishermen some insight on how to possibly protect the heavily pressured waters there.

http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=414246

In the thread I mentioned a river a good friend of mine from AB and I used to love fishing. We both made the decision to stop fishing this river because every fish caught was had torn up lips and missing chunks. It was a few years after this that the BC government changed the classification of this river so that out of province anglers had to book their days online ahead of the season, and limited the number of days. I started fishing it again in 2021 and was very pleased to see the fish numbers up and the fish all looking much better. Fast forward to this year and I have to say that this particular body of water has become my favourite river/stream once again. The fish are the fattest healthiest looking cutthroat I have ever seen (the bulls are pretty sweet too). I caught one fish that had a scarred up mouth, he was also the biggest. A battle scarred old warrior that was still willing to take a dry fly and put up a great fight.

Pics of this years catches:

http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=433509
http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=433542

In summary I will say this, the classified water system here has worked, and I believe worked well. Also a correction to a typo, I stated that my yearly classified license was $20, actually it is only $15. A cheap price to pay for the privilege of catching these beautiful fish in a pristine area.

Tight lines all!

[58thecat]

That's great to hear that things have come around for the better.

[Soab]

Glad to hear this is helping , some pieces of water here are at August levels 12 months a yr , which results in a ridiculous amount of pressure from June 16 to Oct 31.
I don't see this changing anytime soon as we'll never have enough " extra" water for certain rivers.. too bad !!

I'm going to try to get a few days booked on your side for next summer , try to get my son to experience some proper cutty fishing. Hopefully I can get it figured out..

Not sure what the answer is here but I'd be open to giving something a shot

[Lornce]

Still the Elk for example is a tremendous fishery. Water classification, limiting access made it so. We had a gas there for 2 days catching more Cutthroat trout than I could count. We hit some great Dry fly hatches.