On February 23, 2000, Alberta Environment announced that sportfishing for all species of gamefish will be banned in Prairie Region of southern Alberta from April 1 to May 8 to help protect or enhance pike, walleye and perch populations. Stocked trout lakes and reservoirs in southern Alberta will remain open, as will Lake Newell and Henderson Lake in Lethbridge.

The published reason Alberta Environment gives for the closures is, "Our fish populations are under heavy sportfishing pressure and the numbers of large fish have declined." Before moving to Coaldale in July, 1999, I frequently fished for pike in four lakes near Brooks. From my experience, and that of several avid fishing friends, pike populations in most lakes are quite high. A notable exception is Lake Newell where (based on 30 years of fishing experience) pike populations have declined. Unfortunately, Lake Newell is the only significant pike lake in all of southern Alberta that will remain open during the
ban.

There are others lakes around Brooks (and presumably elsewhere in southern Alberta) where pike numbers have declined, and Alberta Environment is to be commended for reducing the daily catch limit to three pike per day in 1999. This move will go a long way to increase pike numbers in the few lakes that need help.

The proposed closures will not affect my own fishing. I will miss out on two or three Saturday afternoons of pike fishing in April. Whereas the proposed closures will not affect my outdoor life appreciably, I am opposed to them because they are unnecessary–and unjustified–in the Prairie Region and the consequences are great. Also, the process to review the pike regulations made a mockery of democracy. And the ‘solution' now being presented is not based on science and will be ineffectual compared to alternatives.

In 1998, Alberta Environment held public meetings at a few places in Alberta to discuss pike- fishing regulations. At the Brooks meeting, Alberta Environment staff reported that pike populations in many lakes in northern Alberta are critically low. It now appears that the department is closing southern waters because it would be objectionable to some if fishing was banned in most waters in northern Alberta, while angling was allowed in the Prairie Region.

In all of southeastern Alberta (outside of Calgary) there was only one meeting to discuss pike regulations. Concerned anglers from in and around Medicine Hat and Lethbridge had to come to Brooks for the meeting. Presumably many southern Albertans could not come, or did not know about the meeting, so the review process did not measure the opinions of anglers from southern Alberta.

It is apparent now that the review process was a farce because department staff knew what they wanted (or bureaucratically needed) to do before the reviews even started. It really did not matter how many anglers showed up at the Brooks meeting, and what was said there mattered even less. (I will not reveal the source, but last week a senior Alberta Environment staff admitted that the department knew what was to be done before the review meetings started.)

At the review meeting in Brooks, area-wide closures were not presented as an option by Alberta Environment. Attendees did say they would like to see closure of specified spawning bays where they could be clearly defined, such as several bays on Lake Newell where fishing pressure is already excessively heavy in April when pike are spawning.

When the new regulation booklet came out last spring, there was a note about the proposed fishing bans in the spring of 2000. Wondering where this had materialized from, I called the chairman of the reviewcommittee and asked him to explain the proposed closures since they were not discussed at the meeting in Brooks. The chairman assured me that there was no intent to implement area-wide closures. A fewweeks later the Brooks Fly-fishing Club was told by fisheries staff that the closures would happen. Again, I called the review chairman (as did others) and again the chairman said that there would not be area-wide closures and that closures would be lake-by-lake where needed. So we were blatantly mislead. It gets worse.

In mid 1999, an Alberta Environment report claimed there was widespread support for the closures.(Certainly Alberta Environment was not getting negative feedback because we were given incorrect information.) This week's press release states, "These changes received strong support during. . . the Northern Pike Advisory Committee review process. In fact, during the pike public review, about 90 per cent supported the closures."

This statement is an appalling fabrication. Area-wide closures were not discussed at the Brooks meeting, and therefore there could not be a statistic describing southern Alberta opinion on this matter.

The entire process of the public review and implementing the spring closure for southern Alberta was manipulative. Since the outcome was predetermined, one wonders why the department wasted a lot of their time and effort (and that of participants) on pretending to be concerned about public input.

Not only was the process flawed, the actual closures are not based on either scientific evidence or common sense. No data has been presented that supports either the need for spring closures or that shows a superior benefit compared to simpler alternatives to help pike and other gamefish.

Pike populations in most southern Alberta lakes are quite good (there are even lakes near Brooks with too many small pike), and they got this way with the ten-pike-per-day limit that was allowed until 1999. Last spring, limits were reduced to three pike per day, and certainly these reduced limits are an excellent step toward sustaining or improving pike populations where needed. Where there are low pike populations they resulted from the liberal ten-fish daily limit, from season-long fishing pressure (not just in April), and from greed of a few anglers.

Where pike populations need help (specifically in northern lakes), Alberta Environment biologists stated clearly (at the review meeting in Brooks) that limits would have to be reduced to one-pike-per-day before populations would recover. Yet this science was ignored when the limits were just reduced to three. If pike populations are low in some lakes, then Alberta Environment should use its own scientific population-modeling data and further reduce limits to one fish per day or even zero. Alberta Environment staff at the Brooks review meeting repeatedly stressed the significant benefit of reducing the daily limit
to one fish, and not once was data provided supporting spring closures.

Common sense dictates that the spring closure will never have a greater effect than simply reducing the daily limit to two or one fish a day for the entire year where needed. That's what the Alberta Environment data said should be done, but this was ignored.

Compared to reducing daily limits, what possible benefit is there from the closure, when (after the closure) anglers can kill three fish per day for the next 44 or 46 weeks? This conundrum is aggravated because pike do not feed aggressively in April, although they can be caught. They start feeding heavily when the water temperatures increase and their metabolism and need for food increases. Depending on the season, this aggressive feeding starts around May 10, and that's also when anglers again will be able to kill three fish every day. And be certain many anglers will take full advantage of that, perhaps now
killing more pike than they might have otherwise. The closure to "save" fish while there is a liberal three-pike limit for the rest of the angling year makes no sense whatsoever.

A few years ago, Alberta Environment and anglers were concerned about walleye populations in Alberta. As a result, strict walleye size limits and zero bag limits were imposed on many lakes. This seems to have worked well for walleye and will work for pike much better than a short ban on fishing.

Lake Newell is remaining open because there is a net fishery in that lake and Alberta Environment knows there would angler outcry if they allowed net fishing and did not allow sport fishing. Ironically, catch rates for pike in Lake Newell have declined in the past 30 years. It is the one popular lake in the Brooks area that needs help, yet it is to remain open and will get hammered in the month of April when all other pike lakes are closed.

Anglers around Brooks may be pleased because "their" lake will stay open. But the fishing crowds most likely will be unacceptably heavy in April and early May as anglers flock there from all over the South. Think about this. Lake Newell will be the only significant pike lake open in southeastern Alberta from Red Deer to the Montana and Saskatchewan borders. There will be unprecedented fishing pressure and hundreds of pike will be killed in the spawning bays. Such pressure will have a huge negative effect on pike populations in the long term and such pressure will not be sustainable.

The easily identifiable spawning bays on Lake Newell, and other lakes with declining populations, should be closed during April. This was suggested at the pike review meeting in Brooks, but ignored.

If it can demonstrated that pike populations need help, then the solutions are much simpler and will be far more effective than the scheduled closures. The sport fishery should remain open all year and the daily limit reduced to zero or one pike during the spawn. Angling pressure will decline sharply, however anglers who want to "get out", will still be able to do so. Fishing pressure will be spread around the many lakes and reservoirs of southern Alberta, thus limiting pressure on open waters like Lake Newell. Where pike populations are low, the zero limit (or one-pike limit) should be extended to the remainder of the year.

Bait should be banned during the spawn to reduce catch rates in spawning bays, if those bays are not closed to fishing. A bait ban during the spawn will reduce stress and mortality on legally undersized pike that have to be released.

Managing individual waters for sustainable controlled harvest is how these lakes should be managed. However, lake-by-lake regulations cost more to enforce, and budgets for enforcement have declined in the past decade. In defense of those who wrote the new regulations, maybe this radical fishing ban is one way to get angler attention. Then perhaps enough anglers will get fed up with the lack of enforcement and management budgets and pressure their MLAs to put more funds into fisheries management.

We can only hope that Alberta Environment will gain experience in 2000, that common sense and science will prevail and lake-by-lake management will be offered next spring.