May 11, 2017

Fishing News

Changes At the Hatchery

So we are down to one hatchery location. This isn’t news but it is relevant. In reaction to, or in anticipation of actions of the newly elected government, the hatcheries has started on some austerity methods.

Those of you who are in the know who might think they are cutting back on

• Stocking back country lakes most can’t access
• Stocking ‘put and boil in the summer heat’ ponds
• Making hybrids that use the same amount of resources but produce less fish

Well you’d be wrong.

Other than a hiring freeze, that seems to date back to well before the election, they are cutting out the rainbow trout (and possibly brown trout) brood stock program. Instead having fish on hand to harvest eggs and milt, they are buying pre-fertilized eggs. The reasons are sound for going in this direction. Apparently hatchery fish take longer to spawn than in the wild. But gone are the days when you could accidentally catch a 24″ trout in an unlikely location. And gone is the security of making your own fish reared in your own water.

Another strange development is the addition of Albino Trout???
I guess they where giving away these fish from the “Trout Lodge” to their new best customers here in Manitoba so all tax payers  were paying for was the rearing of eyed eggs to swim and the truck to the stocking locations around the province.

I am not sure the value of these fish beyond that. As one person put it “They look like someone threw a light bulb in the water”. Glow in the dark pink-eyed hatchery fish should prove no match for the loons, mergansers, and other piscivorous species out there let alone the trout that have been in these waters for a few years.

Better to save these fish for the ornamental ponds the were probably designed for.

Your Tax Money.

That stamp on your fishing licence, that became a permanent print on the licence, that was supposed to be only for fish enhancement, is now for fish AND wildlife enhancement. That means the fisher (who out number the hunters) will be footing the bill for all things outdoors and not just fish as intended.

Illegal Stocking

Many years ago and many times since, it has been suggested that some of these aerated lakes with tax payer fish in them, should maybe have a ice fishing ban placed on them. Not all but maybe the ones that had special fish in them that don’t take well in other stocking locations. Two reasons have been given against any such change.

1. That banning a form of fishing is seen as a form of favoritism to fly fishing. This is bunk, we have bait bans and motor boat bans all over the place based on biological reasons. (Even though keeping the gut hooking, grip and grin, photo op, eyeball freezing ice holes off a couple of sensitive lakes can easily been seen as biological. So we could have ice fishing bans on lakes LIKE EVERY OTHER PROVINCE IN CANADA AND EVERY NATIONAL PARK IN CANADA.
2. That, if we did ban ice fishing on any lake whatsoever, that some locals would ruin them by illegally stocking them.

Well guess what. Pike, perch and even catfish have been introduce to many of the aerated stocked trout lakes. Some can be blamed on overland flooding but most are a direct result of the so-called “White Pail Biologists”

The worst of both worlds. We could enact a law for fear of someone breaking a different law and sat back while they broke that law anyways.

So we still  have no 20th century regulations in place outside of barb-less hooks. and the can and cannot fish regs, designed to be simple. are a joke.

in summary

• Complete closure on all fishing except on stocked trout lakes (that now have closed season fish in them) April to mid May.
• We can net for suckers during that time but not angle for them
• We can angle on lake trout water in the presence of pike, bass and walleye
• We can’t angle for pike (like we can across the Ontario border) anywhere
• As fly fishers we can only use 2 hooks as each fly counts as 1 lure but we can throw a 3 treble (9 hook) plug.
• We have no C&R season for any fish
• We have almost no C&R water

Afraid of change much?