Sad state of affairs

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by cube

Not saying I necessarily agree with it but there have been a few trials of slot sizes that have failed in Alberta.

https://mywildalberta.ca/fishing/reg...ta-May2017.pdf

It says it failed because of people keeping fish smaller and larger than the slot size. It says 30% of fish kept were illegal and fishing pressure was immense. In order for slot sizes to work they have to be prolific, open to several lakes to avoid creating high fishing pressure on just two or three lakes. This is exactly how they are going to destroy the few lakes they have left open for retention.

[beaver river game]

Everyone can argue all they want but when you take Lac la Biche for example when they put in there test net out in the middle of the 100 aboriginal nets keeping stocked walleye unless you are lucky enough to find some brown blood in you your never keeping fish at this rate until our provincial government grows some balls and puts everyone on a level playing field


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[wind drift]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Nobody is asking to go back to the old days. Old days was 5 walleye any size, and I think it might have been 10 before that. I think 1 slot size fish per outing would be manageable, with harsh penalties like forfeiture of boat, angling gear, and license for anyone caught over their limit.


Pigeon, Wabamun, and St Anne all need to be thinned out to help create a balanced fishery imo, and a 1 fish limit would do them good, even if only for a season or two. It took decades of 5 any size to collapse the lakes, I’m 100% positive opening up a one fish slot size would only help the lakes.

It certainly would help alleviate the pressure they’ve created on the lakes that allow retention.

Look at the surveys for Lac Ste. Anne.
http://aep.alberta.ca/fish-wildlife/...s/default.aspx

The numbers of pike have gone up while walleye are going down. Looks balanced to me. Compared to what that lake was like 20-30 years ago, this is amazing.

As for Pigeon, that lake is so altered, it’s no surprise that there’s hardly any pike. Is there any spawning and nursery habitat left for them? You can thin all the walleye out, but it will never be full of pike again. Might as well leave it as a whitefish and walleye factory, at least until all the poop in the watershed causes fish kills and do it in for good.

For either of those lakes, if the regs went to one walleye between 45-50 cm per day, the only thing limiting the number of boats on the water will be the number of folks with boats, launch availability and storms. Then, in a year or two, there will be moaning about missing walleye and the need to re-stock.

[wind drift]

Originally Posted by beaver river game

Everyone can argue all they want but when you take Lac la Biche for example when they put in there test net out in the middle of the 100 aboriginal nets keeping stocked walleye unless you are lucky enough to find some brown blood in you your never keeping fish at this rate until our provincial government grows some balls and puts everyone on a level playing field


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It’s only the Feds that can change that, and it called the Constitution.

[michaelmicallef]

The fishing in southern Alberta is the pits this year. Lots of fishing opportunities are gone. Due to winter kill, fishing pressure , fluctuating water levels and so on.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by wind drift

For either of those lakes, if the regs went to one walleye between 45-50 cm per day, the only thing limiting the number of boats on the water will be the number of folks with boats, launch availability and storms. Then, in a year or two, there will be moaning about missing walleye and the need to re-stock.

First off, Alberta should have a restocking program in place regardless of the retention debacle.


Opening up just one or two lakes would be counter productive. Gull, Sylvan, Pigeon, St Anne, Wabamun, Pine, Long, Beaver, Lac La Biche, Baptiste, Lac La Nonne, Jackfish, Devils, Vincent, Floating Stone, Pinehurst, Spencer, Marie, Amisk, Fawcet, Isogun, Island Lake, Garder, Buck, these are just a few off the top of my head. If they were all open for a slot size for 2 months in the summer and two months in the winter, people would have a choice and not put extreme pressure on any one lake. Having it open for just a couple months in the summer and a couple months in the winter would make it easy to monitor populations as well. Then after a couple years see where they are at. If numbers seem to drop drastically then shut it down, if numbers seem to keep sustainable then we will know we have a system that works.

Add fines with teeth along with license suspensions. First offense $1500 for fish over or under, suspended license for second offense.

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

First off, Alberta should have a restocking program in place regardless of the retention debacle.

According to info on the My Wild Alberta website ... "The primary purpose of walleye stocking is to achieve self-sustaining populations, rather than maintain populations through continuous stocking."

So it sounds like gov't will stock walleye in a lake up to a point and after that it becomes a total management experiment. Becoming nothing more than grandiose ideas of what an outdoor lake aquarium should be.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by Red Bullets

According to info on the My Wild Alberta website ... "The primary purpose of walleye stocking is to achieve self-sustaining populations, rather than maintain populations through continuous stocking."

So it sounds like gov't will stock walleye in a lake up to a point and after that it becomes a total management experiment. Becoming nothing more than grandiose ideas of what an outdoor lake aquarium should be.

That’s like planting your garden this year and hoping to harvest some next year.


Our money would be much better spent on restocking walleye than lab experiments and bogus surveys from our bio’s.

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

That’s like planting your garden this year and hoping to harvest some next year.


Our money would be much better spent on restocking walleye than lab experiments and bogus surveys from our bio’s.

As I see it providing a "put and take" Walleye fishery in Alberta is very close to impossible. Where would we source the eggs from even if we did have a viable hatchey program? We pretty much have to rely on natural reproduction and that requires an abundance of naturally produced mature females and suitable spawning habitat. Both pretty scarce as it now stands. The whole AB fisheries system is on severe tilt right now and there doesn't appear to be any
viable way to get it back in balance. Money alone won't do it.
This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been utilizing the resouce for fourty years or more. The "panic button" was hit by many anglers in the early to mid '80's and it's continued the decline ever since. My take anyway.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by Salavee

As I see it providing a "put and take" Walleye fishery in Alberta is very close to impossible. Where would we source the eggs from even if we did have a viable hatchey program? We pretty much have to rely on natural reproduction and that requires an abundance of naturally produced mature females and suitable spawning habitat. Both pretty scarce as it now stands. The whole AB fisheries system is on severe tilt right now and there doesn't appear to be any
viable way to get it back in balance. Money alone won't do it.
This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been utilizing the resouce for fourty years or more. The "panic button" was hit by many anglers in the early to mid '80's and it's continued the decline ever since. My take anyway.

I have no idea what it takes to run a hatchery but Saskatchewan seems to be able to do it and the only thing separating is from Saskatchewan is an imaginary line.

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I have no idea what it takes to run a hatchery but Saskatchewan seems to be able to do it and the only thing separating is from Saskatchewan is an imaginary line.

... and about 8000 additional lakes .

Sask. has always had a superior Fisheries Mgnt. system than Alberta, At the moment they have far less pressure issues than Alberta does and about 4 million less population to deal with. With 800 or so lakes that currently support Walleye populations, Alberta got the short end of the stick. How Sask holds up to the trending surge of Albertans to their area remains to be seen.

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by Salavee

... and about 8000 additional lakes .

Sask. has always had a superior Fisheries Mgnt. system than Alberta, At the moment they have far less pressure issues than Alberta does and about 4 million less population to deal with. With 800 or so lakes that currently support Walleye populations, Alberta got the short end of the stick. How Sask holds up to the trending surge of Albertans to their area remains to be seen.

Yes, but what I was getting at is they restock their lakes so it’s not an impossible task. And of those 8000 lakes, how many of them are accessable by car?

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

Yes, but what I was getting at is they restock their lakes so it’s not an impossible task. And of those 8000 lakes, how many of them are accessable by car?

Accessability .. thats another issue Alberta has to contend with.
Sask, not nearly so much.
Alberta utilized two lakes as donor lakes when we had the Walleye Hatchey up and running ..Lesser Slave and Bitstcho. That's all AFIK. Today, I doubt AB would even consider LSL as a donor Lk and I doubt Bitscho itself could handle the whole load. Not much Left.


Sask enjoys a much better ratio than that and to thier credit, they utilize them

[Kurt505]

Originally Posted by Salavee

Accessability .. thats another issue Alberta has to contend with.
Sask, not nearly so much.
Alberta utilized two lakes as donor lakes when we had the Walleye Hatchey up and running ..Lesser Slave and Bitstcho. That's all AFIK. Today, I doubt AB would even consider LSL as a donor Lk and I doubt Bitscho itself could handle the whole load. Not much Left.


Sask enjoys a much better ratio than that and to thier credit, they utilize them

I could be mistaken but I thought there was a hatchery at Cold Lake?

[Salavee]

Originally Posted by Kurt505

I could be mistaken but I thought there was a hatchery at Cold Lake?

That's the one. It opened when Leroy Fjordbotten (?) was Minister.

At the same time they allowed the screw- up of the East Prairie River at the west end of LSL.. a major spawning Inlet and filtering Marsh.

The last I heard, the hatchery at Cold lake was shut down due to a disease problem. Whether it re-opened or not,or is running at partial capacity, I have no idea.