The Lakeland is lucky enough to boast beautiful gems of water bodies, some of which are home to species of fish that are invaluable to the area’s avid anglers. Protecting these lakes and their fishing populations is critical to these men and women. In fact, one could go so far as to say that nobody cares more about preserving wildlife resources than the people who hunt and fish – several are people who have family memories of enjoying Alberta’s wild with their parents and grandparents, and who have an emotional investment in seeing that their children and grandchildren have the same opportunities.
According to the provincial guide for fishing, it was in 1996 that Alberta started to introduce the restrictions on walleye after seeing a major decline in their populations. While regulations may have been needed at the time, anglers at a Sept. 7 meeting in Lac Bellevue Hall argued that these regulations are out of date, and that some lakes listed as having a collapsed walleye population are yielding completely inaccurate information. One only has to go drop a hook in the water for a few minutes at a lake like Lac Bellevue to realize that the walleye population is far from collapsed. Knowledgeable anglers note that in some of these lakes with supposedly collapsed walleye populations and zero catch limits, there are fewer perch and less pike, and the pike and walleye begin to look thinner as well as the walleye begin to eat themselves out of house and home, as the meeting organizer Ray Makowecki described it.
Not only are the fishing regulations possibly having the reverse intended effect, but it also means Alberta is missing out on a huge opportunity for tourism. Many anglers head to Saskatchewan to go fishing, which is regularly used as an example, with Saskatchewan offering more opportunities for harvesting fish and doing more to boost tourism, for instance, by introducing one-day angling licenses as a convenience to occasional anglers and visitors.
Of course, local lakes aren’t what they were 20, 30 years ago. One can watch local lakes diminishing over time through satellite imagery. Change is happening and it is inevitable that it will continue happening. It is imperative for all Albertans to see better protection for fish populations – through controlling for predatory birds like cormorants, more sensible fishing regulations and protection for local lakes and habitats, to see that in 20 or 30 more years, fishing enthusiasts’ children and grandchildren can continue to enjoy this beautiful resource of the Lakeland.
