One of Alberta’s major concerns is the limited amount of lakes within the province and the significant number of anglers that buy angling licenses roughly (200,000-300,000 angling licenses sold in Alberta annually). If the truth be known Alberta also has a significant number of rivers, streams and creeks to address intense angling pressure as well. As a matter a fact it has been said that Alberta has the third highest angling pressure in all of Canada. The potential for reservoirs, lakes and large ponds that are stocked with Rainbow trout to provide consistent quality angling experiences and disperse angling pressure is gradually being realized by the province. Allocating fishery management funds towards stocked rainbow trout Stillwater fisheries and then largely considering this program as solely for overly consumptive table fare is costly and under utilizing the circumstances in a fair amount of waters.
The small ponds that lack habitat, food base or conditions to ensure survival of rainbow trout past the year of stocking are numerous within the province. The number of these small ponds by far out numbers the quantity of Stillwater’s that will produce stocked Rainbow Trout that survive Alberta’s winters, will grow to a proportional size and provide a quality consistent angling experience. On the small ponds where stocked trout will not survive the initial year of stocking there is no real waste, or negative impact on the possibility of a more resourceful angling experience and they are the right place to allow anglers to retain a creel of five trout per outing. On the waters stocked with Rainbow Trout that can provide resourceful consistent quality angling experiences the province needs to re-visit the management (restrictive) measures, enforcement, policing and minimum fine structure processes on these Stillwater’s. This is not to say that strict catch & release measures should always or ever be placed on even the most productive Stillwater’s stocked with Rainbow Trout the consumptive angler’s needs should be factored in when possible. Both the consumptive and conservatively minded anglers need to consider and respect each other’s views and desires.
The province is doing a better job of recognizing the opportunities available province wide in the last few years than they have in the past, due to the vision and hard work of some very creative public servants within the Fish & Wildlife Division. However the province, specifically, the political arena and the minister tasked with the privilege and responsibility of overseeing ESRD and the Fish & Wildlife head office need to work together in a concerted effort to both reserve and allocate a lot more funding towards the provincial fishery management budget. In order to allow MR. Matt Besko who is currently responsible for the task of allocations and funding within the Fish & Wildlife Division a lot more room for creativity. Since he has been put in this position the anglers of Alberta have seen some real positive change which provides well intentioned anglers some light at the end of the tunnel. Now that the province has recognized the potential and opportunities lets act upon them and put some real sustained efforts into a much more balanced sustainable and renewable approach towards quality consistent angling experiences province wide.
Our group has leafed through the Alberta Sportfishing Regulations for 2012 and compiled a list by zones and further subdivided by the areas within those zones. Hopefully this list will help to inform anglers of what the current restrictive processes are for Stillwater non-stocked/stocked trout and Walleye fisheries province wide with reduced harvest opportunities and more progressive restrictive measures on them. If you have the chance to view this paper and you see we may have missed some waters within the parameters discussed please contact “Friends of the Red Deer River” and we will add them to this paper.
On some of the lakes that the province manages for Walleye and they figure the angling pressure to retain Walleye would devastate the fishery, maybe a little more enhancement annually is required. One common sense approach would be to add some of these lakes to the sixty lakes that have been stocked with Walleye. If some of these lakes aren’t already on the stocking list add them to it and plant a higher number of Walleye annually if it already isn’t on the list. This sort of creativity would allow a more resourceful restrictive measure allowing anglers to retain at least some or even a few more Walleye without negatively impacting the fishery. I think if the province looks at how Saskatchewan handles there Walleye management programs on its highly pressured Walleye lakes our group thinks they will see this is exactly how they handle these situations. Which Alberta should emulate.
The same measures need to be applied to the lakes that are stocked with Rainbow trout annually which have the potential to provide a much more enjoyable experience than is currently the situation. One such Rainbow Trout lake would be Dickson Pond west of Red Deer by Spruce View. This pond most likely requires aeration during the winter especially harsh ones. It also needs to be stocked with a higher number of trout and at the same time try more creative restrictive measures that only allow one trout over 16″ or 20″ per outing.
The lakes with a well structured, balanced limit in both number of fish and minimum size of fish that can be retained seem to result in a much more dynamic equilibrium involving some very serious limiting factors. There is science based evidence that restrictive measures affect either negatively or positively the desires of all venues of anglers both consumptive and conservation minded. Lack of more resourceful restrictive measures affects the overall angling experience in a very destructive manner. Conversely stocking massive numbers of one species of fish and placing strictly catch & release restrictive measures compromises the physical conditioning factors of fish, as well as the balance between the predatory-prey relationships as they relate to the biomass of an intact food base within these lakes. With resourceful restrictive measures there is also a much more perpetual balance reached between all sport fish species cohabitating on each specific water body involved. Lakes with resourceful restrictive measures also support healthier fish generally that have better genetics, overall conditioning factors and the biodiversity is definitely much more dynamic within the overall ecosystem.
Click here for a listing of all the lakes in Alberta that are currently managed in a more resilient manner than many of the other 800 lakes that aren’t managed with more restrictive measures.
In 2010 the minister of ESRD Mr. Mel Knight himself spoke to our group of his concerns over ESRD’s province wide obsession with Walleye, because he sure didn’t understand it himself. After studying the 2012 Alberta Sport fishing regulations in detail and composing the above list no wonder he himself was so concerned. Apparently Alberta is managing Walleye to the exclusion of all other sport fish species present in the province. This list also clearly shows even the Walleye are sure not being managed for the angling public and these waters are supposedly managed for the public hence (“public Waters”). Our group has just E-mailed a list of questions in reference to how the aboriginal communities and the commercial fishing operations factor into the above listing of information. Our group thinks the evidence is not going to shed a good light on the Alberta conservative Government, ESRD and the Fish & Wildlife Division. Our group is also in the process of requesting the entire breakdown of the dismal $ 10 million dollar Provincial fishery management budget and where the lion’s share of that is being allocated.
One of our groups major questions is where has Trout Unlimited and the Alberta Fish & Game Association been while all of this has been transpiring. There are some real concerns developing here like why is Alberta so heavily managing the fish especially Walleye on Stillwater’s what are the real agendas going on behind the scenes. This maybe shaping up like private interest groups are being well taken care of (Industry over public angling opportunities) and the main stem watersheds (flowing waters) are about to be managed largely for water engineering. If I was an angler that fished for trout or any other sport fish species in Alberta especially on flowing water I would get involved right now and be very concerned.
The real question that begs to be answered here is whether or not Alberta is most intensively managing those fish populations that benefit private interest groups with public funds on public waters over and at the expense of the angling public’s desires and overall angling experiences.