hey guys....although i definitely consider myself a hunter much more than a fisherman, i have been known to drown the odd worm.  last night terry clayton, srd fisheries biologist for southern alberta was in medicine hat for a round table discussion with the general public.  i have a report on what went down for those interested.


a good chunk of time was spent with anglers upset at the commercial guys. facts are that the 2011 winter had a well below harvest considering how much is available. we are down to 5 guys left with commercial licences and a lot of water was unfishable this winter due to unsafe ice. the highest southern water harvest was lake newell with an allowable catch of 200 000 lbs of whitefish.....188 000 were taken.

the usual complaints of how commercial guys are stealing from us all were voiced and how it should be stopped. i think a lot of guys in that room were surprised to learn that whitefish were introduced simply to have a commercial fishery, and that whitefish breed plenty fast enough to keep up to the harvest. another thing that got guys thinking was hearing that if the commercial harvest stopped, there MAY be a danger to the pike and walleye fisheries due to overcrowding and stress, and whitefish potentially eating the eggs of other gamefish.

penalties for overharvest were explained...and most agreed that it was too lenient. also explained is that someone from srd is nearly always there monitoring the commercial fishery on the days it is actually happening. one thing ive always found peculiar is how srd views pike and walleye as gamefish....but whitefish are not....at least in terms of the commercial fishery.

next topic was reesor. the suckers are outcompeting the rainbows for food resulting in stunted unhealthy fish. the suckers have entered the lake through the inlet canal from battle creek. the grate preventing that is in unknown condition, but its suspected to be faulty. same with the grate on the outlet...unknown condtion. a possible solution is to introduce browns too possibly keep the suckers at bay. it is unlikely that large brood stock would survive the trip that far from the hatchery, so IF it happens, it will be more of a long term plan. IF it happens, there likely will be restrictive limits on the harvest of browns....at the very least until browns have grown to enough size to be a legitimate predator to the suckers. it was agreed that rainbows and browns do coexist in several lakes, so rainbows likely would still be stocked as well as the browns.

i regards to this, terry made it clear that he is not opposed to this plan, and that there is no negative side effects to be concerned with IF brown trout were introduced to reesor lake. he made it clear that it is not on his list of priorities at this time, but if he sees enough interest from local anglers to initiate this plan that it is quite doable.

i asked him straight out....will 100 emails be enough to get your attention?....and his response was that it would likely only take a dozen or so to put it on his list of things to do. if you would like to see brown trout in reesor, send terry clayton an email with your thoughts.

sturgeon also were discussed. there is a university student that is working on tracking sturgeon using telemetry tags. there are 123 (iirc) sturgeon that have been tagged locally with the electronic tags. there are several locations all along the river that are picking up the signals from these fish. one fish tagged at koomati (suffield) went all the way to lake diefenbaker over the winter, and appeared to be spawning near the grand forks. thats some miles. another fish was tagged near the forks and a week later was recaptured (by angling) near whiterock coulee. a week later, it was caught again at the rattlesnake hole (olechowski for locals). there were several other fish that really didnt move anywhere. some spent the entire year in a very small stretch of river. there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why the fish travel, stay or otherwise.

further, 2 local guys have been tagging fish for a few years now. they have tagged (spaghetti tags) over 1200 fish. terry believes the sturgeon population to be in much better shape than what was thought just five years ago, and the population seems to be increasing nicely. from accounts from both terry and the university student, and the two local guys....all age groups seem to be plentiful right from wee little 10 inchers all the way up to the great big lunkers everyone dreams of catching.

from reports by the local guys, srd, and the roomful of local anglers, the rate of catching sturgeon that are tagged seems to run between 10 and 20 percent. very good news on all fronts for sturgeon in the SSR.

no discussion on sherburne/grassy, but spruce was mentioned briefly.  it appears that all the walleye are gone, and catching brooks is becoming more difficult.  really very little info on it.