Is Catch and Release Making Fish Smaller? | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 164

Name: Is Catch and Release Making Fish Smaller? | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 164
Uploaded: 2025-04-02T22:44:37+00:00
Duration: 1 h 30 min 22 s

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[Applause] this episode of Outdoor Journal radio is brought to you in part by the invasive
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species Center protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species Freedom
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Cruise Canada rent the boat own the memories jmbb cyc a marine your home for
0:25
all things Power Sports boats and equipment and sail the ultimate
0:31
destination for your Outdoor Adventures well Howdy Folks thank you
0:36
for joining us I'm Angela Viola he is Peter Bowman fresh from uh a week of uh
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Toronto Sportsman show we shouldn't be fresh man we should be burn out big time but he is uh Dean
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Taylor right there your screen vaa Nick everybody's uh here helping us out what
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an exciting program we have today a little fish talk later on kitties give me a hell a little fish talk Dr Steven
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Cook will be joining us for those of you who are not familiar uh with him biology professor at Carlton University uh has
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published over 1200 peer reviewed papers oh my there's a lot of papers I'd like
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to know I'd like to compare that to other people that have peer reviewed
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papers like you know do a comparison and see who's got the like that's a lot of papers man yeah but you know does take
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Crossman he'd probably have more than that wow I would think woo been around
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longer right wow you know what I mean I don't think he's with us any longer no
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but I'm just saying papers are p r viwed papers are P they still be there you're saying they
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they live on stacked stacked in there like cordwood uh he's also a chairman of
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the board of for technical experts for the Great Lakes chair of the board of
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technical experts for Great Lakes come on now Great Lakes fishery commission yeah maybe Fisheries commission and
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fellow of the Royal Society he's a fellow just like yourself now you get the king's
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coronation give me hell yeah congratulations on your uh final award my friend thank you my friend well
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deserved have you seen the uh we we deserve it have you seen the accolades the comments on the social media going
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pretty good going real good actually can I make some money on can like can I get a buck a piece or something for it feel
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good about it there's the odd negative one in there too I got to see this oh yeah out there but that's part
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of the game right was social uh anyways uh we look forward to speaking to the
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doc here shortly we're going to talk about catch and release fishing is it stunting fish cannibalization is it
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causing that I mean there's all kinds of stuff that we need and of course the thing with Stephen he always throws in his own uh stuff that's the best part of
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it the organic nature yeah baby yay uh but first uh fishing Canada the store
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boy was it on display last week baby now yeah hey you're not wearing your gear I
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was hoping you'd comment hey I was hoping you'd comment did you forget this
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maybe maybe there you are you got your gear on there you are there and there so
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you don't need to have the gear on I'll just wear the gear this isn't it funny the number one shirt or hoodie that was
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okay the hoodie okay sorry I shirt we'll talk about that one in yeah that was bizarre but the number one hoodie live
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at the sports was the same as the number one hoodie online oh really yeah that's
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the W wal the uh the brown one the brown one yeah wow caramel and you know it's
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funny I called it before we even ordered it oh yeah you were the one saying it that's going to be our number one like
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dog poop like Po baby poop feeling I had a feeling and it was great it was and it's sold they do look good I have to
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say unbelievable wow but the other one the freaky one was that red t-shirt that
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I don't know if it looked like a mistake to me cuz it almost looked pink well and that thing sold off the rack the first
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day was almost gone uh that's that's a UV shirt right that's the big thing now
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and we only had the one UV product there and that the long the long solid red
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sleeves right but wasn't there a short sleeve there as well no no oh I thought there was a short sleeve as well no that's a button- down U shirt same as
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those black ones that we were wearing those were all UB as well okay but as far as the cool casual uh U material
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that was the only one and and it also comes with a hoodie which we didn't bring there so now we know people want
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who would have thought people want protection and we are going to give them we're going to protect you so go online
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uh go to the store uh fishing canada.com or shop. fishing
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canada.com come on now yeah yeah now and you too can participate in the marryt
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and joy of wearing your favorite brand loving your loving your your gear that's
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it yeah yeah uh listener feedback Mr Bowman we got a lot of listener feedback live last week and it's kind of nice to
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get back to one in print this is one that came in um from Jonas
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olvia olonia right is that sound right boys olvia olvia Jonas or yonas might be
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a yonas yonas could be on YouTube and this is about our our show that just aired in response to our coverage of the
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Pan American Black Bass Championship by the way can I just can I just interrupt you for one moment congratulations to
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all of the folks who worked on that episode give me a hell yeah all the production people hell yes
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and post production that episode uh was better than the live event itself and
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the next one is better than that one well I don't know how that seemed impossible well it is just cuz I was at
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the live event and it was okay don't get me wrong it was fun but but when you see it on the show man oh in 4k oh my and
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all splend on a big old screen like that right there it's pretty damn good uh deal who's that out there that's Bob
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isumi Bob isumi and Adam Foster right there as part of the tournament they were going into favorites but they
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faltered a little bit it just well maybe we shouldn't give that away for folks who don't know they just said a little bit oh a little
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bit step there off the kind of maybe they didn't win the first day ah okay
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but maybe they won the second day all right you never know all right you got to watch it to see it know that's available if you missed it uh it's on
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the fishing Canada YouTube channel corre now and is it getting some views Dean is
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yeah it's doing really well it's outpacing our other I think all other videos except for the tamogami episode
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wow wow and I think it would do even better right now as we're I guess we can speak in real time the Bassmaster
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Classic is starting tomorrow tomorrow so uh maybe there's a lot of people worried about that and they'll come on to that
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after because we had Bassmaster uh Elite anglers in there we had F not MLF
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anglers in there we had the best of the best in there so uh you got to check it out but anyways uh Jonas says YouTube
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bass fishing tournaments are a great example of how anything can be commercialized we make money and
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statistics out of a natural resource that should be fiercely protected I wish
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they could weigh and return the fish immediately instead of running back to the stupid weighin well stupid well they
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do some do some do some do unfortunately not all of them do because
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in order to be able to to do a live way
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and dump the fish in the boat in the water when you catch it you have to have a camera on you you have to have a
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television product you or or at least a some kind of video product that you can show people otherwise you're doing it
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for yourself right and these are competitions that uh generate views and
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audiences and have advertisers and make some money for some young folks who
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are getting into business uh gives them an opportunity to become professional Anglers without any of that Superstars
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they become Superstars they they life altering and unfortunately in order to
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do that you need to cultivate an audience and it's pretty hard to do without fish tell what we just mentioned the
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bass master class is the perfect example of of the generation of a liveway and
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what it can generate he's right it's money it's about you know it's about but it's like an says about these kids being
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Superstars becoming on even the older guys again returning to Superstar status but um like the Bassmaster Classic is a
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massive liveway in event where you bring your fish to the scales you bring them in the Live Well you bring your five in
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you can release 20 throughout the day whatever but you bring your best five in and it's a spectacle of all spects the
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biggest one of of all bass tournaments a yeah it's a show to be at one of those
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things is stays with you I would say the only negative would be if if there was a negative to the stupid
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bringing the fish to the stupid way in I guess you could say that could be a negative but they treat these fish pretty good nowadays I mean they have
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additives for the live well they keep the fish alive oxygen it's to the advantage of the Anglers to keep them
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alive they bring them to the weighs they have live tanks there with formula in there to help the fish out they weigh
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they weigh them quickly and then they get them back in the in the lake I think for the amount of uh
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return that those fish bring to the fishing Community to maybe maybe even
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influencing a young person to change their Direction
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change their path and take up fishing for for a living um I think for the amount of
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benefit and return versus I guess what I'm saying the ROI is there
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the number of fish that potentially are harmed with these weigh-ins is now down to minimal absolute minimal yep so in as
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much as I'd like to agree um unfortunately until we figure out how to have cameras on everybody and then
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somehow broadcast that and somehow I don't even know I don't even
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know cuz you missed a live audience that's that's the other thing one of the things that you got if you ever get a
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chance to go to one of these big events one of the things you have to do is look around the audience and look into the
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kids eyes when these Superstars are coming in with these bags of fish just look at
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those kids eyes and it'll tell the entire story that I'm trying to articulate right now because there's
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nothing like that child and then when a a young Cooper glance a perfect example
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Co Cooper Gand is an Ontario boy from Bowmanville Ontario he's a young lad he's the youngest of the Canadians I
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believe is he not the youngest period right now no I think there's a few I don't know madian guys like that but but
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well there's another example of Trey mckenny guys that are that young when Cooper walks after he weigh his fish in and walks around at any bassm weighin
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there are hundreds of kids running up to him for autographs he's a hero to them you know what I mean this is a young
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Cooper glant that's you know basically just starting out and he's already superar status so so yeah it h there's
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yeah I mean we get the hype of it of it all MLF does a great job of of doing the catch and weigh it on the on the boat
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and all that's but it's a television production only really right that's what it's all about millions of dollars worth
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right there oh yeah okay so that's why anyways anyway thanks for that Jonas uh
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thanks for your opinion thank you so much conservation Corner Mr Bowman my
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favorite time of day conservation Corner brought to you by the invasive species Center is your favorite I thought I bet
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you stepen cook more favorite he might be he might be but right now he's not here are right today on this show so far
12:36
so far I got you this could be my favorite how's that what do you call that guy what's your nickname for him
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stench I love the stench the poor guy that is a tench my friend bad reputation
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invasive species Galore they've almost uh invaded every corner of the planet
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aside from the Antarctica that's hard to believe a't that who can lay claim to that yeah there's not there's not many
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others isn't there humans exactly only us only us we should bring one over
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there just so it can have it that's right just then we just for a minute and then it just for a minute an orca would
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eat it anyway so you know uh the tench is a mediumsized deep bodied fish as you
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can see by this example behind me with a small small scales rounded fins and single barble on each side of its mouth
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these striking all ol colored fish were brought into Canada illegally in 1986
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now I read something here an today I was I want to look it up a little bit well tell me and uh it says I read
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another paper and I don't know if it's true or not it says it was brought to a Quebec fish farm in 1986 and escaped
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into the raloo river a tributary of the St Lawrence but if they were brought into a fish farm you'd think that would
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have been legally right wow but maybe not it could have been illegal and they
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wanted it for whatever reason right for and what was the re did it say why you were brought in well fish farm I don't
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know it doesn't say the above said it is the native to Europe and Western Asia brought into the US for food and as a
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potential sportfish I was going to say is it consumable that's what the origin they say from u in the US then they came
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up here so yeah kind of interesting if that's true well yeah I mean we have to
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we have to look into that just to see I mean obviously obviously it's here and we're not going to uh do a whole lot of
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damage to it ourselves because it's not a sportfish so I don't think there's a sport fishery for it as you just said in
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Europe there is in fact I I think it's one of the more popular ones right in the match fishing and all that stuff
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exactly it there another thing I saw today and looking all this up I was on the Ontario Fishing RS and there was a
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guy and there's a picture of him holding a tench and that thing I'll bet you it was 12 to 14 in
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it was a big one like it was they say 10 to 12 here but or 8 to 10 or whatever but I'm telling you this was this was
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looking very like a a common sucker size almost it was big the problem with this
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thing uh is that it's uh highly adaptable uh in new environments and in
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most cases out competes the native fish uh like minnows and Bullhead and suckers
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I was going to say it sounds like a sucker but um and uh
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they've been they've eaten significant amounts of snails insects and other
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Aquatic invertebrates so you might say well so what that's good well it's not good because it doesn't belong there
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that's right all of that food normally is consumed by a native fish you see the imbalance there and
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that's why it's a big concern um to learn more about the TCH how to identify them and visit the invasive species
15:55
Center website if you've seen a tent or another invasive speci species in the wild reported to the invading species
16:01
hotline or online at Ed maps.com Ed
16:06
maps.com and help keep the waterways free of Invaders and get rid of the stench at the same time yes come on nowo
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all righty the news brought to you by this is new the news brought to you by
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J&B your outdoor Super Store come on now um this is new Dean right yep they've
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ctage uh check them out uh J andyc F J andb if you're going to look them up on
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the Internet it's JB cycle.com not the end that's it but
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they're called J and B I know it's a little confusing but that's okay JB
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cycle.com for all your outdoor needs and uh fun and Mart and all the rest of it
17:35
fun and mert what's in the news Mr in the news as you can see from this beautiful
17:41
artwork that Mr Taylor has put together you know you're getting better at this all the time nice gradient there look
17:48
what this W took me forever to get him to use drop Shadows e but no drop shadow in that one that's why I mentioned it
17:55
you're a drop shadow guy though so you're kind of like you have a kind of a drop shadow fetish if if I think you
18:01
know like when you have black text and you put a drop shadow on the black text no you should do that no oh you're okay
18:07
you're off that one why would you do that well cuz you have a fetish so I thought you know you're always
18:12
asking can we change the color of that font so I can have a drop Shadow Brook tro may be able to adapt to
18:20
hotter weather researchers in at Penn State University studied how brook trout respond respond to Rising water
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temperatures due to climate change they looked at how the fish adjust our biology to survive warmer conditions so
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we're Brook troat in my mind I'm sure in your mind from all the fishing that
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we've done from them and in Dean's mind is that they're a cold water fish a cold water species right I would assume
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they're cool to cold water we we presume that but then you know for every time
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that we've caught uh uh a brook trout in a small
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little uh cck little cck that's maybe a little Beaver Dam at one end and the
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water's muddy and shallow and and you know that can't be that cold correct you
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know yeah I would I would think that too but you're right we think of them automatically as a cold cold water yeah
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so they're having the key findings is their temperature limits a brook trro Brook trro start to struggle when the
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water temperatures rise above 61 Fahrenheit or 16 celsi at 68 fahit 20° C
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or higher they experience serious stress which which can affect their survival um
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I did not even to me if You' have said 68 Fahrenheit I still go by Fahrenheit with water temper I don't know why I'm
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weird with that one the same way everything else I'm good with centigrate and Celsius but that that pounds I'm
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into pounds too yeah still the pounds pounds and and and and and yeah inches
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yeah for fish meas measuring I can't do centimeters and let's face it we're still stuck in the 70s we're definitely
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old Canada for sure
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PUK from Europe he has no idea what any of this stuff is that we go by so what is it so okay so we just three of us out
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of four obviously vaa wasn't brought up with the imperial measurement but the
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three of us three different ages MH and yet we all you weren't even born when we
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were using iuse it's weird too cuz I use miles per hour on the water but kilometers in the car y that's true
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doesn't make any sense true that's true I'm the same way I don't think of it yeah and and yet and and you talk pounds
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when you're talking fish but you I'm assuming you buy your your groceries and kilos yep y wow it's a fish thing it's a
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fish thing so when we go up the lake so in the lake we're going miles
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per hour right do we go 20 miles up the lake or do we go 20 kilm up the lake or
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40 kilm up the lake do you think about Lake distance now wow that's a good one I think you might be on the something
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cuz I think we go 20 km up the lake at 20 m per hour that's what I'm thinking for a bunch of whack jobs wow wow that
21:11
was uh too much hippie in our younger day I think something like that that's so 68 fenhe or 20 celsi uh that's
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the limit for to me I would think they'd be dead I didn't even think they could go at 61 let's say 63 or 64 I thought
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they would die but I don't I'm not a biologist and I don't really know their temperatures but keep in mind
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that the real home for brook trout real native Brook brook trout live in in
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lakes that have got upwellings right so Springfed Cold Cold Spring cool to cold
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so that makes sense but these little ones that we're talking about in the little ccs and the beaver dams and stuff
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um maybe uh they're they're they're the ones who can get up to 68 cuz you're right I wouldn't have thought that they
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could even get up that high they say scientists studied the trout during two summer heat waves in 22 July and August
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during the second Heat Wave the trout adjusted faster showing they learn from past heat stress so it wasn't so well
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adjusted in the July one then in August all of a sudden they're doing better in that a second Heat Wave so they're already adjusting in that one quick
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period so they can do it I guess then they compared them uh in here I think it
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was a comparison to Browns brown and rainbow trout uh are more heat tolerant so brown trout and rainbow troat can
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handle warmer water better than brook trout round trout can survive up to 75
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fenhe 24 C and rainbows 77 and 25 Celsius before experien stress so these
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numbers are all higher than what ever what I ever thought but you know cuz to me when you hear that 75 Fahrenheit
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you're thinking large Mo bass now you know what I mean that's bass water right there warm it's shallow weedy warm
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interesting article uh you want a more you wna you want more you want more of that I give you more of that hey you
22:57
want more I want a more ang give me a bit of the more it's all at fishing canada.com folks we're just we don't do
23:04
justice to these stories as you could probably tell no we just kind of introduce him and then you can go if you're interested you go to fishing
23:10
canada.com and you get the real deal uh speaking of Real Deal fan question of the week my friends brought to you by
23:17
fishfindermounts.com come on now fishfindermounts.com some
23:22
new stuff on our boat pretty soon uhhuh uhhuh I can't wait can't it's coming up we going to do anything different this
23:28
here on our boats you think I'm I'm I'm thinking I'm thinking I'm just thinking a couple of tweaks on our boat but not
23:34
much just because it was pretty damn good yet last year but you always you can live and learn right you sure can uh
23:40
Fishfinder mouse.com brings you the fan question of the week and of course uh this is the one that if you if you do
23:48
all the right things and your planets and stars
23:53
align then you could win something is that the deal on this that's right is that the way it works how do they how do
23:59
they how do we discover if the planets are all aligned they have to be publicly subscribed to us publicly subscribed to
24:06
us and you have to leave a question that you guys deem appropriate okay but did I
24:12
not also say the last episode that we need to have them show us proof that
24:17
they're listening to the show so I'm no longer reaching out to people perfect I'm waiting for them to come to us and
24:23
say hey I heard myself on the show perfect perfect do we want do they we don't even proof at that point no they
24:30
just need to say I oh wait a minute no that's not going to work cuz you know what's going to happen everybody who ever submitted a question is going to
24:36
send a note to you say hey I heard myself on the show and you're going to say no billybob th.com that's me he come
24:43
on now yeah I will need to require probably a screenshot of the a screenshot yeah a screenshot is all you
24:49
need somebody sends you a screenshot and they qualified through uh all of the
24:54
other things that they needed to do and the were chosen by us to be uh prew
25:01
worthy yeah and in cases like this we're probably going to need confirmation of the real name because this guy used a
25:09
fake name well okay but but if if he gets a
25:14
screenshot oh wait a minute passport maybe they got to give us their passport no we'll have to think
25:21
about that how because what's stopping him from taking a
25:27
screenshot of this yeah and then submitting it oh but but wait a minute
25:32
oh be yeah because you don't know where where this person really lives do you no no okay so they have to submit a
25:39
screenshot and you have to give them your some ID of some sort where you live so we can if you use a fake name yeah
25:45
you're going to have to to to prove your identity to us don't just don't screw us over people because you know I guarantee
25:51
you if we find out you're going to be screwed way worse we are going to get you bad on this podcast so if you're red
25:58
fish 3142 redf fish that's a catchy little I like that name there isn't it uh on
26:05
YouTube on YouTube YouTube handle uh and you submitted this question the question
26:11
is we have all heard that regardless of water body a walleye is a walleye
26:18
however have you come across a situation where this was not true and the walleye on a particular body of water reacted
26:25
differently in other words the walleye was not a walleye a situation where
26:31
typical Walley tactics and presentations did not work but rather atypical or even
26:36
weird tactics worked best do you think the reason for this was due to environmental causes fishing pressure or
26:43
perhaps other reasons I don't know about that didn't I
26:50
have one that came to mind and didn't you tell me once about a top water thing you were doing for Walley once oh yeah
26:56
for sure that's kind of in that Lane yeah but that doesn't mean it's not a walleye it just means that under those
27:03
conditions that's what walleye do I that body of water yeah I mean how many times
27:09
we talked about it not so much lately but we used to talk about all the time this in Crazy pattern on the Bay of
27:15
quiny for Walley in the dark throwing top water or or just subsurface baits
27:21
and then smacking it on on the surface so it Walley when the frogs are
27:27
migrating and fall generally when fire frog it's usually a frog migration
27:32
probably not So Much Anymore um as there's less and less frogs that are migrating but when they used to migrate
27:39
a lot and go into the uh late fall late October and they would go into the lake at at night just at
27:46
night that's when Walley would smash top water stuff they they hear them slurping and then guys were taking advantage of
27:52
that throwing top water for Walley which is a crazy one but I mean is it crazy a
27:57
Walley is a is an ultimate Predator there's no difference really between a Walle and a Musky let's say or a pike I mean these
28:03
are fish with teeth that need to eat and they will do what it takes to get I mean maybe a Walley won't eat a muskrat okay
28:10
I get that but you never know either there might need a mouse but he's eating frogs right so but they are they're a
28:15
predator don't be uh don't be fooled by that what I would say to to Red Fisher
28:21
here is that I it took me a long time to figure out but I I can honestly say that I'm
28:28
most lakes in Canada I think there are two basic populations of Walley there
28:34
are the pelagic Walley and they're the structure Walley they're these fish that these Walley that are hanging on Rock
28:40
piles they're typical on a rock pile on a rock point and all that stuff and they live their whole life they do that every year spawn come back out and hit unst
28:47
structure the bottom fish um and then there's what do they call it Ben
28:52
something there's a name for the bottom structure fish oh we had it on the show benic Ben that's the Ben and then the
28:59
pelagic fish are the ones that are that are open water roers they just follow
29:04
balls of bait minnows Shad Cisco whatever it takes perch doesn't matter
29:09
to them they're as long as these fish are up off the bottom they the Walle will be up off the bottom of the beta so
29:15
think of it that way right off the bat cuz I never used to think of that I mean and you were the same way as I we used
29:20
to Just Fish structure you know continuously structure now all of a sudden every Lake we're going to even in Northern Ontario there is tons more so
29:29
yeah they're like 40 50 ft of water and smooth Basin at the bottom and it's loaded with walleye suspended so it's
29:35
like wow where did these guys come from well they've been there their whole lives and they've been there forever we just didn't discover them until you know
29:41
10 years ago or something like that so so yeah that's that's the way I look at it there's so many weird ones I got went
29:47
to fish at hey Lake remember Phil morlocks Hy Lake I caught i Fishing large M bass in a 3-ft channel and I was
29:54
slamming walleye on a spinner bait I mean tons of them in there like that so there's so many situations um max Hamish
30:02
remember that Sandy Point there's a Big Sandy Point that comes out these walleye are all sitting on Sand there's nothing
30:07
there I think Walley is probably the most adaptable versatile hunter in the water system yeah I think unlike unlike
30:16
some fish you know largemouth bass being one smallmouth bass being another musky
30:23
unlike those creatures that kind of do have their preferred methodology for
30:29
consuming protein I think walleye is that one species that is totally
30:35
unpredictable on what's going today right absolutely what's going today and that's today right now the Detroit river
30:42
is ripping and they're all starting to go through there and you're fishing them in 3 mph current and you're dropping a
30:47
jig down and with plastics and pop pop pop pop getting all these fish like it's yeah it's a very diverse fish for sure
30:53
all right uh this next segment my favorite of all shows uh little fish talk with the doc brought to you by sale
31:01
the outdoor stores sale is your home for All Good Things fishing hunting camping and otherwise spending time in the
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outdoors yes and I agree with you that is a very fun something to look forward to when we
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get the dock on here is it not oh my God yes especially today a lot of questions
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but anyways uh if you don't have a Sal store near you go online
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doca and you can order stuff ship right to your home uh they even have sales
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going on as we speak sales at sale some items up to 60% off S you go now it's
31:36
time for the doc Steven Cook is his name Dr Cook that is a biology professor at
31:42
Carlton University published now this is the part cuz we had it wrong half the year
31:48
we had 700 peer reviewed papers it's 1,200 paid review
31:54
P easy for you to say and probably pretty soon to be 1300 if I know stepen
31:59
cuz he's a very hard worker right so soon to be very uh 13ish Steven we
32:04
missed you uh at the Sportsman show you were vacation yeah I was doing family
32:09
duties but uh hoping next year so yeah it's got to be did you go south for the
32:15
winter break or yep yeah headed to Dominican Republic uh the closest gut to fish was snor coins so uh sadly did not
32:22
wet a line oh well before we get to today's subject uh there is something
32:28
that I ran into uh last week and I and I mentioned boy if only Dr Cook was here
32:34
the sports show yeah okay so I ran into a a gentleman um that
32:40
uh is a a bit of a a conservationist obviously by heart he he purchased a a a
32:48
just a huge parcel of wilderness I think 60,000 Acres yeah I think and big chunk
32:57
of land Chuck land and and and pristine beautiful wonderful and I I won't say
33:02
much about the location you know it extremely well but it's just perfect it's a wonderful we'd all love to have
33:09
this land and it's chalk full of uh lakes with fish lots of fish big
33:18
fish uh bass to be exact and um and we said well that's
33:24
great you know when we first started talking to I I I could see the potential you know of him buying all this land he
33:30
could develop a little bit of it but then keep most of a pristine and maybe make it like a a a bit of a preserve and
33:38
or uh you know may charge a few bucks maybe people want to go backpacking or
33:43
kayak fishing for bat like all that I had all this yep yep pick me none of the
33:49
above he wanted to talk to us uh to see if we could help him come up with an
33:54
effective way of eradicating all all of the bass no no not all the bass no no
34:01
not all the bass not all the bass most of the bass two lb and under yeah he wants to the only way we can go fishing
34:07
there Steven say if you kill every two pounder under that you you have to bring them out and he says I know you'll catch
34:13
them so you can't lie to me and I just about had another heart attack when this
34:18
guy I was I just blew my mind but then he said he also did say but the reason
34:23
being there's so many small ones but there is six sixes sevens he says there's even the odd eight pounder in
34:30
these legs but but he doesn't want trout is his his love and he wants to fill
34:36
these lakes with trout yeah yeah that was my assumption is that it was going
34:42
that way so yeah you know um you know I think it's pretty clear to everybody you
34:47
need baby bass to have adult bass old bass die eventually so uh yeah you can get rid of
34:55
all the ones under two pounds but at some point then all the bass disappear again if that's the point because stock
35:02
them and so on but stock trout but uh yeah and uh um the ministry of Natural
35:08
Resources still on private lens like that still does have a a role to play um most waters are connected and so one
35:16
can't quite be Johnny apple seed and you know sort of you know hobby uh resource
35:21
manager without also coordinating with uh with our friends in the government to make sure that decisions that are being
35:28
made are good ones so that's a good point apparently he had talked to uh uh Mark Ridgeway Dr Ridgeway about
35:36
about uh trying to find out how to eradicate bass and what's the best way to get to get did he want to get him out
35:42
of every leg that he had except one except one he's got one Lake that he says I I would probably keep bass there
35:49
you know cuz there there but but his his as we as we started discussing this with
35:55
him you know we we got I think closer and closer to his dream and that is to
36:02
create the ultimate trout fantasy uh the ultimate trout waterway
36:08
that he can you know regulate different types or maybe species or size of trout
36:13
in various bodies of water and uh and that's really what he bought this land
36:19
to do and we're we're trying to of course I jumped right off on him and I said listen Maybe maybe you ought to
36:26
maybe take a few years to think about it and Lease me that property exactly let
36:31
me lease it from you for a few years and let's see what we can do because the way
36:36
he T and he showed us some video by the way um there some pretty spooky big fish
36:43
in there and uh the way I looked at it if it's possible to have private Waters
36:52
in Canada that that that because I'd always heard that if you can navigate through water and not touch land that
37:00
that there there is no off limits for people trespassing trespassing right so
37:06
I thought you know this would be the perfect place you know we all dream of going to Mexico for giant bass well what
37:14
if we didn't have to dream that that big and that long we could do it right here in Canada yeah y you know wouldn't that
37:20
be cool imagine right I'll tell you that and Stephen the video that we saw that angel and I saw this water well like it
37:27
looked like trout water it was so Crystal Clear it was unbelievably clear
37:32
and and here he was fighting a large M bass in this water I mean obviously the lar both going to live in it but it
37:38
looked like perfect tro water too I don't know if it was spring fed or anything like that but maybe not for brookies but I'm sure rainbows could
37:43
live in that stuff no problem I don't know the temperatures we don't anything about it but it was just clean Rocky and logs and it's just like perfect yeah
37:51
yeah we do some work in the kok reserve uh in Quebec area yeah we've been there and
37:58
they have a number of lakes so they have their own fish hatchery uh where they raise Trout Brook Trout and rainbows and
38:04
they stock them in Lakes but they also have bass in in a bunch of those Lakes uh and they they coexist uh obviously
38:12
the the bass will put a hert on the the smaller ones so uh once they get past a
38:17
certain size they're fine but a lot of that is supported by the Hatchery efforts there's not a whole lot of
38:23
natural reproduction so it does allow you to tailor The Fishery so hey this one we want lots of little ones for
38:30
maybe novice Anglers this one we want to focus on trophy fish so fewer but larger
38:36
animals that people can try and Target so so it is possible to kind of create
38:43
your own world that you control then you can you can actually pull that off to
38:49
some extent um of course Mother Nature uh doesn't always agree with what one
38:55
wants to do you know there's always wrenches that get thrown into things uh temperature means everything and we've
39:01
talked about that before so you know good good temperature years bad temperature years harsh Winters uh um uh
39:09
light Winters but it's when and I I think we're GNA talk a fair amount about the concept of carrying capacity today
39:17
it's when different things happen so something else gets thrown in you think you know how the system works and
39:22
everything gets reshuffled the world order if you will in lake has to be reshuffled and what
39:30
does that look like how does that work and it takes time for it to come back to sort of this equilibrium state so um and
39:37
there used to be a time where Fisheries managers tried to tailor Lakes to
39:43
specific things we want this one to be a trophy Lake we want this one to be you know more numbers we want this one to be
39:49
something different um the problem in Ontario is we have so much water that
39:55
the regulations get off complicated when you have to do that it ends up being the
40:01
regulation book ends up being as thick as a telephone book and that drives people away from fishing it doesn't
40:07
bring them in it pushes them away all but the experts that are able to decipher the the legal ease in that that
40:14
that telephone book thick uh regulation guide so so we've gone to this model
40:19
where we tend to manage for the average and so there are lakes that are winners
40:24
there are lakes that are losers and so it's a bit harder to find those where it's this is the trophy Lake and this is
40:31
the one you go for numbers at least it's not being managed that way it's just sort of a function of chance that this
40:38
one becomes this and this one becomes that so yeah that's interesting because I was thinking today I was thinking I
40:44
was on the Ontario RS for a while and for the most part I I get you're saying
40:50
they kind of average it out but Walley is the one fish that it doesn't seem that they average out they seem to have
40:56
up here is a little bit of size different there's a slot here's a you know you can there's all kinds of
41:01
different numbers for Walley compared to everything else why is that is there a reason for that yeah so walleye we uh
41:09
Harvest uh at levels that exceed anything else in this province so as you
41:14
know you know there's you know most bass go back you know the majority of Pike go
41:19
back and and so on Walley are the one that uh uh you know if it's in if it's
41:25
legally harvestable it's probably going to end up in a fry pan yeah um and for
41:31
good reason they are awfully tasty uh and so they lake trout and Wall Lake
41:38
Trout's the other one that gets some special attention uh but uh walleye in particular need to be monitored
41:45
carefully to make sure that they aren't being pushed over the edge uh in terms of of harvest or cetch Rel
41:51
mortality uh and based on you know some of it's still learning you know a lot of
41:57
these tools that we use and like oh a slot limit here and a length limit there
42:03
um yes it's science but there's also an art to it and we learn by doing um the
42:08
fancy word is adaptive management uh and it means you you apply regulation you
42:15
you monitor you learn you adapt it you change it you continue to and you keep
42:21
sort of adjusting it till you get to where you want and that's something that
42:26
uh that's not bad management that's good management that's being responsive to the system and adjusting as you need to
42:33
so a lot of what we do is that kind of adaptive management and uh because there
42:39
is a lot of uncertainty with with with fishery science it's not we're Fisheries
42:44
scientists and Fisheries managers aren't as good at our jobs as people think we are it is really complicated and we
42:51
often get it wrong but but knowing that um one monitors and makes a M
42:57
accordingly right on at first when you were talking like that I thought oh that' be a nightmare though because
43:03
every year we've got to figure out you know how many can you what's the limit in this Lake and that used to be two but
43:09
now that that one's three or is that one three or is that one four but you know
43:15
as responsible Anglers that should be part of our job each year if we're going into a body of water there should be a
43:22
certain amount of research and and uh if you don't you screw up you get charged I
43:27
mean it's that I'll bet you there's so many Anglers that don't know the limits the length limits etc etc all the little
43:33
rules of each Lake that they fish each division that they fish because we don't
43:39
put enough importance on that right right if if was like Stephen was saying
43:44
where you do manage the resource based on today not on History you should be
43:52
able to adjust that along the way and if we as Ang
43:58
were made to feel a little more responsible in that process and that is
44:03
check every time you go out to a new body of water each year not last year
44:09
check and see what the rigs are then it would work but we're not condition to that right we've been let go for so long
44:16
just chances are they are the same for the most part but you do have to recheck a lot the third Saturday of this it's
44:23
the six fish versus three Fish Conservation it's the same you have to check it's funny we're talking again
44:29
about this cuz I just I put it in my phone every year and I was looking at it the other day just to make sure
44:35
everything's starting to open up all the seasons are opening up now so I have my zone 15 my zone 17 my zone 20 that's the
44:41
B main areas that I fish around here and I put all the rags in there the sizes in there and and if if everybody did that
44:46
just copied it took a picture of it of that page or whatever like that then you just look at it in your phone and say I
44:52
have notes and it'll you could just write walleye and it'll come up sort of thing like that a front yeah awareness so might be a good point for people the
44:59
other piece of the equation is the monitoring side so one thing is when a R's there is to comply with it obviously
45:04
but the other thing is monitoring and we don't have enough uh you know Fisheries assessment staff and minr to do all that
45:12
work uh but we almost all have a cell phone in our pocket and so uh there's
45:18
more and more work being done so that we can use this as a scientifically valid
45:24
groundtruth way of collecting data about fishing effort so where are people fishing and then what they're actually
45:31
catching and then what they're harvesting uh and uh a lot of people take pictures they include length
45:38
information so that's becoming a treasure Trove so I think in the future we're going to see fisheries management
45:45
becoming more real time because we're getting data in more real time um as as
45:51
more and more people switch to that approach I I I don't know about you guys you every fish you catch do you uh enter
45:59
it into an app I don't but I know a lot of people do yeah that's catching on
46:04
I've heard I've heard few people that are doing that constantly which is great uh resources to have because as an
46:10
angler obviously you want to be able to rely on historical data uh year after
46:16
year so it's it's good for that and it's also good obviously for for
46:21
future I think it'd be a great way for M&R and I'm surprised I haven't done
46:27
this already maybe reward people by having them download an M&R app where
46:33
people do register each one of their catches sure and and make a note as to
46:39
whether that fish was released or consumed what a great tool that would be for counting numbers and counting
46:45
inventory yeah and cre surveys so I don't know if you've ever been on the water and somebody comes up with to with
46:51
a clipboard but it's never one person it always has to be two or three for safety
46:56
it's extremely expensive and you also it has to be randomly stratified so you
47:01
also have to go out there on days when it's you know dark and cloudy and nobody is fishing and record that nobody's
47:07
fishing um we're getting better with using drone technology for that kind of thing as well so you can fly overhead
47:13
and count boats and Anglers but cell phones give us more than just the number of people out there it tells us what
47:21
people are targeting what they're catching uh the catch rates how many fish per unit time how big they are uh
47:28
so yeah I I think you'll see things become that we're going to harness that technology for good uh over the next
47:36
decade or so Angelo and I to everybody listening Angelo and I are going to start this system with distant fishing
47:41
Canon any 5B large M or small M bass we just want a picture of it and the
47:47
Waypoint where you caught it every one of them in the you know the southern should give us the pattern and the
47:52
pattern and maybe take a picture of something on the shoreline in the area and there's there anything WR with that and a screenshot of your fish finder
47:59
stuff like that that's pretty good information so that I can validate the data too please you got her Perfect all
48:06
right uh getting a little closer to what we uh can I do one more question to backtrack on Steven what he said earlier
48:13
yeah Stephen this has always intrigued me when you said as ANS brought up the the bass being out the troat being in
48:20
and these Lakes you said because the bass the big bass will eat the small troat is there ever an instance where
48:26
the big TR will eat small bass cuz it never gets talked about ever and I don't know if they would or not so yeah I'm
48:32
I'm sure but that implies that H so so so yes um but probably not at a level
48:42
that's you know that's meaningful and there's places where the bass would be able to hide in a lake so you know back
48:49
in the warm Swamper areas where they'd be able to get away from from trout where a Brookie or a rainbow would be
48:55
unlikely to go um I think a lot of it also comes down to the fish themselves and so a hatchery
49:03
fish doesn't have the street smarts that a wild fish does and so when you throw
49:09
in a bunch of brook trout that are seven or eight inches long and they swim in circles looking for for trout Chow for
49:16
the first couple weeks they're extremely vulnerable to Predators uh so it's easy picking for something like a a large
49:23
mouth we do very little bath stalking in this this Province um there's there's no
49:29
public hatcheries although uh in the most recent Hatchery update they did say
49:35
they were going to put uh put some effort towards raising Largemouth in
49:40
hatcheries which I assume is for urban Fisheries you know like small ponds that kind of thing um uh but by and large
49:47
it's it's wild production here um and yeah I it's I I think it's the Hatchery
49:54
fish are as big of an issue as it the being trout I think it's the fact that they're Hatchery morons you know at
50:01
least till the the easy picking are gone and a little bit more stavvy uh um are
50:08
survived the first couple weeks because you think a troat would see like a fry ball or something like that you they
50:14
just smash they have to be in the same location for that to happen right they're not they too that's like a lion
50:20
can a lion can a lion kill a tiger well if they Liv together you might find out
50:26
tiger well see cuz the lion main protects its throat anyway so one are the other things that
50:33
came out uh in conversation with this this person that we met uh was that
50:42
because originally he said that he wanted to do it solely because he wanted to stock trout in these Lakes which
50:48
which apparently were originally there at some point in time in our
50:54
history uh bass were the invasive of species and they moved in and displaced
51:00
trout not trout displacing bass right so we already have evidence that that does take place oh yeah yeah and the other
51:07
thing that he said well I have to do it anyways because they have eaten
51:12
themselves out of house and home there's just no food left and so they're cannibalizing they're eating themselves
51:19
and my answer to that was so what I mean protein is protein whether it's a little baby bass or whether it's a minnow or
51:26
frog it doesn't matter it's protein so what do you care let them eat themselves they're doing what he wants us to do
51:32
exactly the Big B are doing what he wants us do exactly so so which leads us to the question today are we in a
51:39
situation now where we're managing the resource and I'm talking bass in
51:45
particular but we could extend this to Walley too where we're managing it so well and maybe uh the mortality rate is
51:54
so low on our releasing of fish that we
51:59
maybe run into this danger where number one the fish are being stunted because
52:05
they're just not having a chance to grow to any sze because they're eating each other in most cases they're cannibalizing on themselves is this a
52:11
net result of Catch and Release possibly yeah so let's go back and think
52:17
about a planet without humans on it okay um and so we've got a lake again no
52:22
humans but a lake and there's fish in it you know maybe it's even you know it's Bass and walleye and you know a bunch of
52:29
Min species and blue and crappy and so on over time that populate the
52:34
individual populations of the different species will change the size of those populations uh and that's because of
52:42
variation in the environment competition within a species and between species uh
52:49
disease outbreaks and so on and so a population even without humans on this
52:56
planet is never stable and so things are always oscillating and then it's not just one
53:02
species that oscillates it's the other and so you see you have these sort of Peaks and valleys if you put a line
53:09
through it they're generally flat okay you know but they're you know there's good years and bad years good decades
53:15
and bad decades um and that is something that that you know that's just sort of
53:21
what happens in in ecology uh and so when we as humans do
53:27
things on top of that it could be modify the environment so we alter the
53:32
shoreline to the point where there's less places for bass to reproduce so all of a sudden there's fewer bass getting
53:38
into the population so we start to see the bass one oscillating downwards uh but then um uh you know the
53:47
walleye population uh the government puts on a regulation to limit fishing
53:52
and all of a sudden that one starts to increase and then perhaps that then puts more pressure on the bass which then
53:59
drives them down or vice versa so all of these things that we do as humans either
54:05
as management actions or incidentally just as we go about doing what we do or
54:11
what Mother Nature does whether it be with a a virus or with a a good you know
54:17
a good weather year or a bad weather year all of those things create this this chaos if you will so um and and
54:26
that's really sort of the state of all of our water bodies out there um there's not much that's truly stable it's always
54:33
changing something is always changing uh and managers have these levers so they
54:39
basically can you know I'll play with this lever but it it might the goal is to do something for walleye but it
54:46
Cascades because it also influences those others because everything eats something or is eaten by something or
54:54
competes for space uh or other resources so so that's I'm trying to take several
55:01
chapters in an introductory ecology textbook and and distill it down to one
55:07
five minute blathering so hopefully that was reasonably loose that's good because I I had no idea on that you know but
55:13
it's true and and how about the cannibalism part is there is there um a possibility
55:20
that let's take bass cuz we're talking about bass but this could apply to anything is there a possibility that the
55:26
protein consumed through eating themselves is not quite what their
55:31
system requires so can they can their health be downgraded if they're eating
55:37
say 80% 90% themselves as opposed to a variety of species of food that they
55:43
might consume on a weekly basis yeah uh cannibalism is well documented and and very common in
55:49
largemouth bass uh we did a lot of pond experiments in Illinois when I was uh
55:54
doing some of my uh graduate studies down there and we would drain ponds at
55:59
the end of the summer to look at the baby bass and you would have a bunch of fish that were one inch long and you had
56:05
a bunch of fish that were four inches long and so the four inches were the cannibals and they ate their brothers
56:12
and sisters and they did just fine so so yes that happens uh no particular
56:21
issue at least with with bass and their ability to grow they're getting the the nutrients that they they need from that
56:27
um the bigger issue is when you have lots of big fish um that are enough
56:34
to to basically Tamp down all the little ones So eventually there is no more food
56:41
um they're all big and can't eat each other and that's when you start to see starvation and that's when diseases come
56:48
in and that's when you can see a population collapse calling Lake calling
56:53
Lake Alberta yeah that a perfect example for that we've actually been on a body of water where that we were right in the
57:00
middle of it happening and it was the most bizarr looking thing I mean still to this day they were
57:06
zombie walleye they had they had the heads of I don't know a four five lb
57:12
walleye and these little emancipate like the bodies were like a snake like a
57:17
little we thin trail of a body but you could not drop your bait in the water
57:22
without two or three walleye jumping all over it it was bizarre so they clearly they were starving yeah right and one of
57:30
the reasons on that lake is that they had a zero retention rate right correct if I'm not mistaken so this Lake you
57:37
could not keep anything everything was released for for for for as long as we
57:42
could remember it was strictly a sport fishery that that you go in and have at it and I think now uh well a few years
57:50
after we two or three years later they they opened it up to I think three fish maybe even four fish fish because there
57:57
was no food left stepen it was the most bizarre thing you've ever seen nothing zero not even
58:03
themselves Hey Stephen oh sorry oh go ahead quickly I'll say that again going
58:10
back to that imaginal planet without humans on it that would happen every once in a while there would be Lakes
58:15
where literally there would be that level of population crash for various reasons where that equilibrium gets
58:22
disrupted and all of a sudden you know it just everything's gone until there's a new recolonization event and it it you
58:29
know things eventually come back to some new ecosystem you know that that's built
58:34
from the bottom up right um but in in today's world with fisheries management
58:40
we should be able to prevent that from happening um and sometimes that means us playing God that means you know
58:47
realizing and that's what Fisheries regulations are in many ways right we are um we want to be able to reasonably
58:54
use and and Harvest resources um in a sustainable way and
59:00
sometimes that means regulations focused on the target species so walleye but sometimes it means thinking about what
59:07
Walley need to succeed as in food as in appropriate spawning gravel uh and so it
59:14
may mean for fisheries management it may mean nothing to do with regulation it may mean let's put in some gravel
59:20
spawning Shaws or let's focus on habitat enhancement that protects baby fish over
59:27
winter so that the babies can make it to the point where they don't fit in the mouth of those adult walleye and there's
59:34
places for Bait fish to hide so although when we think about fisheries management you know like people you know we manage
59:41
because we care about bass we care about musky we care about walleye but Fisheries managers actually have to
59:46
think about the system as a whole because if you focus just on the walleye you don't have much you can do you know
59:53
you basically can you know how many can you just make sure people don't take too many but you're forgetting about the
59:58
habitat and the ecosystem which the Walle I depend on that's the all that other stuff is the foundation and if you
1:00:05
don't have that you you're going to have that population that is slowly starving or or being fished down or disappearing
1:00:12
H so what I was going to ask you Stephen you when you said when the lake gets you know all most of the bait fish or
1:00:18
whatever are gone and it's just let's say just large moou and the big girls all of a sudden the bigger fish are
1:00:23
eating the smaller fish in a situ ation backtrack that so that the lake is full
1:00:29
of bait fish let's say 4 in beautiful 3 and 4 in minnows who's the better Predator the smaller fish or the bigger
1:00:36
fish because the smaller fish would be quicker you know there more of them there's more smaller fish more smaller
1:00:41
fish let say a group of 20 2 lb bass versus 10 4lb bass is there a difference
1:00:47
there at all yeah those little guys would certainly Hammer them I think uh
1:00:53
they probably be more likely to work together as well the bigger especially when we're talking about bass they tend
1:00:59
to become a little bit lazier and are looking for that one big meal as opposed to lots of lots of little meals has been
1:01:05
my experience so um yeah you know it's just you know if you want big fish you tend to throw big baits it's not you
1:01:11
know it's not Universal but it's a it's it's a good starting point yeah okay
1:01:17
that's interesting we've got a lake knock far away that's going through everything that you've just mentioned
1:01:23
could be would be should be a good friend of ours Chris hawkley have you
1:01:29
you did Chris talk to you about skoog what's going on there oh my God yeah those emails you've been doing craziness
1:01:34
just uh it used to be we grew up on skoog it's 20 minutes away from us right so used to be one of the most incredible
1:01:41
Fisheries on the planet you could it was guaranteed it was fantastic but that was the problem it was guaranteed and it was
1:01:48
fantastic and far too many of us obviously uh took advantage of that on a
1:01:54
daily basis and and uh it now is going through some just incredible and it's
1:01:59
not just about over harvesting although that that that has something to do that was the initial kind of shock and then
1:02:06
all of a okay let's replenish oh we can't now because now the environment is well it's it's it's Fallen pre to
1:02:12
urbanization right Port Perry has become relatively uh significant urban center
1:02:21
albeit out out in the boonies but all the other little community around it are
1:02:26
growing farming is still quite important to that sector so they're still rightow
1:02:33
manure whole yards it's just the The Perfect Storm for disaster can a a lake
1:02:41
like that ever truly is there such a thing you know can
1:02:47
we regenerate a body of water that's that's pretty much gone completely flat
1:02:52
is it possible we can but it's hard we call these the reason is because we we
1:02:58
think of these as being tipping points so you know things are up here and all of a sudden you cross a threshold and
1:03:05
you've gone from one state to another and that new state it things start to
1:03:11
become stable within that crappy new state right and the inertia it takes to
1:03:16
push it back to that better state is really really tough and so preventing
1:03:22
systems from flipping or tipping or uh collapsing however you want to think
1:03:28
about it is way less expensive and easier to fix than waiting for it to go
1:03:34
downhill and these Lake you know skoog is just one example of a couple lakes that are uh and there's there's others
1:03:41
in Ontario that are on the doorsteps of big big you know areas where there's
1:03:46
lots of people and uh it's going to take a few bad news stories for us to really
1:03:53
start to think how we manage these water bodies and the lands around them and you hit all of you know it's it's you can't
1:04:00
manage the fish in that Lake simply with Harvest regulations and think you're going to fix it it means working with
1:04:08
Farmers to put in buffer strips uh in those Upland areas kilometers or miles
1:04:14
away from the actual uh from the Lakes working with Shoreline owners to make
1:04:19
sure that not everybody's turning their front uh you know the the space in front of their Cottage into a a concrete
1:04:26
retaining wall with you know with Beach inlay uh so all of us contribute because
1:04:33
we all eat food and we all live in dwellings um so this is sort of where
1:04:38
yeah it it's it's not just for the fish it's for the waters and it's property value so people should care your
1:04:45
property value goes goes downhill if your Lake isn't swimmable and fishable
1:04:50
and we're getting to that point sadly in some of our Waters that there is in particular for sure um Stephen what
1:04:58
about other like other species for instance north of here so skag might be
1:05:03
an example but it's even further north of here and through the halberton area all that there's a lot of small lakes
1:05:11
with a lot of small muskies I go to each I've went to three or four lakes last year where I caught multiple small
1:05:17
muskies on these Lakes like no fishing bass does that become a problem when
1:05:22
there's so many these smaller muskies they don't get big in these Lakes a big one would be a 36 in or 38 in or
1:05:28
something like that they're not trophy muskies at all but they seem to be replenishing over and over and more and more better than any other species are
1:05:34
they dangerous to walleye and to Bass etc etc yeah they're certainly predators
1:05:40
and will will eat anything that that fits in their mouth barely uh uh yeah
1:05:47
the the challenge with with musky is there's not a whole lot that eats them
1:05:53
um and they do you know they are big animals and and require a fair amount of
1:05:58
food but they're also living in areas that are on the edge of their range they
1:06:03
are on the Northern edge of that musky range and with that means cooler
1:06:10
temperatures and so when water temperatures are are cooler you have
1:06:16
less growth opportunity um usually systems are are somewhat less productive things move
1:06:22
more slowly too growth rates are slower um you know it doesn't mean you can't
1:06:28
have big fish up north and you've caught huge fish up North but those fish would be older than the same fish you would
1:06:36
catch closer to where where you and I are right now so um so temperature can
1:06:42
play a big role as as well could those fish a small Lake muskies so a mind or
1:06:49
anywhere up in the Hella Burton and that these like these fish that seem to average this is if you brought that fish
1:06:55
stocked them into transported them to Eagle Lake or somewhere really a great musky fishery could they get the
1:07:01
potential to be a 44 in they absolutely those yeah
1:07:07
those yeah yep that's about the you know it's just like a fishbowl if you put you
1:07:13
know if you have a small Fishbowl your fish won't get big so uh and and in
1:07:19
small lakes uh it's it's partly the competition but uh also realizing just
1:07:25
the the resources that are available and sort of adjusting accordingly well aquarium is a good
1:07:31
point because they we've all witnessed that right the fish will definitely EX for your catfish that you had well he
1:07:37
came in big though yeah but he got a lot bigger he did he double he double the size d the size but yeah you're right
1:07:43
but that's because he eliminated all the competition and he got hand fed pasta he got hand fed pasta so that was a bing a
1:07:49
difference too we had um a fascinating Gentleman on the program uh and uh from
1:07:56
California a bass angling fanatic from California um
1:08:02
and he's 100% convinced that the Catch and Release fishery that they've adopted
1:08:08
so well in that state um is blamed for the the total annihilation of trophy
1:08:14
largemouth bass and he was telling us about you know lakes that you could go to every day and and you'd catch an 8 n
1:08:21
10B large mouth you can't even get a two- pounder and these there's lots of fish fish but they just haven't been
1:08:28
able to develop to the bigger size and and he's blaming it on Catch and Release
1:08:33
fishery to the point where now he's promoting uh consumption of bass he's he's coming up with recipes and
1:08:39
different ways to prepare largemouth bass so that Californians can add that to their uh to their meals um but he's a
1:08:47
big believer that catch and release is to blame uh for the reduction of size
1:08:54
yeah it's comp licated and I'm going to use bluegill as an example because we've done a fair we the scientific Community
1:09:01
have done a fair amount of work on them in ponds they're good for pond experiments uh and so there's work that
1:09:06
shows that it's not that the way that stunting doesn't come from at least in
1:09:14
in bluegill and we assume that this spills over into other Sunfish species
1:09:19
and bass or Sunfish species and that's the idea that it's not more brothers and sisters that you're competing with but
1:09:26
it's the removal of old big fish that leads to
1:09:32
early maturation so if you're little and looking around and saying wow nobody
1:09:37
else is making babies and uh I've got the opportunity to do so now I'm going
1:09:42
to switch from growing and instead invest all of my energy in reproduction
1:09:48
and reproduction is costly if you're a a female bass you have to make these you
1:09:54
know fatty lipid filled eggs if you're a male you have to have the energy
1:09:59
reserves to guard a nest uh for four to six weeks which and they don't eat a
1:10:05
whole lot during that period so so that's what at least the science says
1:10:12
with bluegill and again I'm by extension I'm making some assumptions that we think it works the same way in bass so
1:10:21
um is it a bad thing to harvest bass no a well-managed fishery should be able to
1:10:27
encourage that but what you would want to do in that case is to protect the big ones and so you know not yes there's a
1:10:35
lot of two pound bass but there's a few three and fours hidden in that Lake as well you want to protect them and
1:10:41
protect the ones that as they move from two pounds to three pounds three pounds to four pounds because they will then
1:10:48
start reproducing when you know they're you know um allow those to be the ones
1:10:53
that reproduce they compete the little guys and then you get uh um the little
1:10:59
ones growing bigger uh and investing in growth as opposed to reproduction so I
1:11:05
think that's what he was saying right he was saying to that he wanted to highlight the consumption value of those
1:11:10
smaller 2B fish pound yeah and so I mean he's on the right track I just think
1:11:16
it's a bizarre for us anyways you know we we've lived all of our Lives protecting bass and to hear this this
1:11:23
notion that we should put them on the menu in in restaurants just kind of
1:11:28
blows my mind but but really why not we do it with every other state like w we do trout we do it you know what I mean
1:11:35
so just just just that mind frame we've had as tournament Anglers that's what happens it's hard to get out it's hard
1:11:41
to yeah to get out there's lots of examples where managers have put in
1:11:46
regulations with a goal you know everybody you know everybody's decided that Minnesota and Wisconsin I think
1:11:52
there's a number of examples where you know managers have heard from constituents that we want this to be a
1:11:58
trophy Lake for for Pike and to do so based on the population characteristics
1:12:03
we're going to put in this type of Regulation it's gonna be a slot limit or a minimum size limit or whatever they
1:12:10
put it in and nothing changes because nobody's harvesting anything so so the
1:12:16
everybody is hearing to catch and release so much that the management
1:12:21
regulation can't do what you want it to do you no the only mortality is a little
1:12:27
bit of Catch and Release mortality and natural mortality you're not able to direct Harvest like you want to uh and I
1:12:35
I can't think of any examples of that in Ontario but I'm sure there have been you're damned if you do and damned if
1:12:40
you don't almost right I mean that's wow wild anyways it's a fascinating Story I
1:12:46
mean we we've spent all of our lives uh yourself included you know teaching
1:12:51
folks that we need to put stuff back and we need to be uh the stewards of our
1:12:57
environment and fishery and Wildlife and we need to do this we now maybe maybe we've we've gotten too good at it you
1:13:04
know and it's time to rejig the whole thing and uh and and and I also love the
1:13:10
notion that you put forward and that is that we should be able to make changes
1:13:16
nothing should be in stone oh God you know absolutely should be able to make changes on the Fly even and and and well
1:13:23
how do how how do you deal as an how do you deal with that well become responsible you know Peter and I have
1:13:30
been fortunate enough to uh to talk to Anglers on the other side of the pond we've been fortunate enough to be at uh
1:13:37
consumer shows uh in England and Europe and Italy and all the rest of
1:13:43
and they still can't believe that we have this wide open it's well it's the
1:13:48
wild west to them right this wide open fishery where anybody with with a
1:13:54
license and then we tell them what it what it takes to get a license they can't believe that but anyways anybody
1:14:00
with a piece of paper says they're legal to fish can stop anywhere and catch fish
1:14:05
and keep some and release some and they still can't believe it well you know I
1:14:11
think we've kind of taken it for granted here to the point where we should look at the model on the other side of the
1:14:17
pond because if we don't manage it properly and in this case properly start
1:14:22
is starting to sound like we we maybe need to be a little more in tune with nature as opposed to Total Catch and
1:14:29
Release like we have been doing maybe maybe each lake has to be looked at differently and even taking one species
1:14:36
in mind so you can have a regulation for for bass on Rice Lake which is not
1:14:43
necessarily the same as Pigeon Lake because last year pigeon had a terrible
1:14:48
recruitment year and temperature whatever it was caused the problem so we
1:14:54
should be able to regulate sort of and it's up to us as Anglers to find out
1:14:59
where and when those regulations are taking place it wouldn't be that difficult you know y all on the the
1:15:06
biggest way to think about the difference between say how European Inland Fisheries are managed in our
1:15:12
freshwater Fisheries here is that here in North America we largely use Harvest
1:15:18
controls right so we limit how many fish people can take from the system over
1:15:24
there we limit effort so in Europe it's effort that's limited so you control the number of
1:15:31
rods on the water and it goes down to the point especially with some of their sort of private access rules that you
1:15:39
know you you can buy you know I'd like to buy four hours on that River for this beat and you go and you fish it and it
1:15:47
may be they only allow somebody on that beat three days a week you know for you know for for 12 hours total or whatever
1:15:54
so the challenge here is that that notion or the freedom that we enjoy in
1:16:01
North America um of being able to do more or less what we want when we want as long as it's legal has spilled into
1:16:08
and certainly you know how we think about natural resources as well so as long as you're on public Waters there's
1:16:14
usually no limit to how many people can go out there the limit usually comes
1:16:20
from when you get frustrated when you show up at the boat ramp and there's a a 3 km line or your shoulder Tosh shoulder
1:16:27
Tosh shoulder combat fishing for steel head or something like that that's usually when effort gets controlled
1:16:32
because people get frustrated and leave yeah um that idea of license you know a
1:16:38
you know um a stamp you know to fish musky on this Lake there you know
1:16:43
there's you know we've got a 100 stamps you can buy them at the local tackle shop over there and when the 100 stamps
1:16:49
are used up that's how many there's no Musky fishing on that that Lake uh or
1:16:55
whatever the case may be in general that approach has been very unpopular in
1:17:00
North America maybe so maybe so but you know now listening to you it makes it's
1:17:07
starting to make a little bit of sense right because because if you are regulating effort as opposed to like
1:17:15
like limits it it's controllable yeah right because if you
1:17:22
have a six- fish limit see this is part I can never understand you have a six fish limmit on a body of water but six
1:17:28
times how many right if there's no limit to the how many as our populations of Anglers
1:17:35
grow so does the Harvest but we're not and our ability
1:17:41
again to use cell phones for me to text my buddy saying wow the fishing's great here who then text their buddy who then
1:17:48
you know and all of a sudden there is that lineup at the boat ramp and all of a sudden the fishing is is crappy and we
1:17:54
see see that in Canada um we we think of it as a whack-a-mole approach right where the everybody hears that the
1:18:01
fishing's good on this Lake everybody goes there fishes the crap out of it population goes down everybody you know
1:18:08
some people start to wander around and look for other places they find it they they have big mouths they tell their
1:18:14
buddies and then everybody moves over there giving the chance for this other one to rebound while this other one's
1:18:21
getting hammered and so it's this constant game of wacka been well documented in rainbow trout Fisheries in
1:18:28
Lake Fisheries in British Columbia where they just show this complex dynamics of where people go and their behavior on
1:18:35
the landscape based on what they hear how the fishing is and then how that changes over time and then they move
1:18:41
again wow that's crazy you know the other but the one problem and I know we
1:18:46
can be our own stewards and all that but but it's that only goes so far we we still do need more conservation officers
1:18:53
out there without question field to really keep you know like when you see a cop on the road doing it with his radar
1:18:59
gun everybody slows down you know what I mean so it's unfortunate we just have such a lack of at least in Ontario I
1:19:04
don't know about the rest of Canada but in Ontario it's such a a travesty to the amount of cosos we have out in the field
1:19:10
when was the last time that you and I ran into a CO in the field in Ontario or
1:19:16
anywhere anywhere anywhere yeah it's been a while it's been a while I was trying to think as we as we're going
1:19:21
through I was trying to think when I mean I can't even no last year Nordic Point Lodge
1:19:28
they came and checked us at the cottage at camp at the camp that's right that's right Nordic point so we did get check
1:19:34
last year the year before probably not before that probably not but you know so I even forgotten about that cuz it wasn't on water it was on land yeah they
1:19:40
were doing uh it was a weird thing they were checking people on land at the uh at the cabins yeah as opposed to water
1:19:49
they were checking in the rooms or seen if you had fish all that stuff right but it it was kind of bizarre really strange
1:19:56
think about it that's a great place to bus somebody oh God yeah right on land you got your guard down okay let's get
1:20:03
that cool here from under the console the battery box okay boys let's go we're
1:20:09
good now I forgot about that that was very very cool yeah so but we didn't hear we
1:20:16
had some good news uh last week at the Sportsman show we talked to that uh one
1:20:22
CEO the big fella he said they actually have been doing some hiring in this area they have a few more at least few more
1:20:30
so they need it for sure got to have it so bottom line what do we do now all
1:20:37
right so how are we going to deal with this uh too much Catch and Release not enough catch and release uh should keep
1:20:44
some smaller fish should not what tell us what to do yeah so follow the
1:20:49
regulations and don't feel obliged to release every fish that's harvestable
1:20:56
there should not be an odium look at all the water we have in this province if we can't have a couple Shor Lunes a year
1:21:03
and have some fish in our freezer uh you know we're doing something wrong so
1:21:08
obviously don't be gluttonous um don't break the law uh but harvest in reason
1:21:15
um we're again this is a our blessing is the the water and the Bountiful resources we have here and uh um we I
1:21:23
think we've Maybe Ed the needle too far where the assumption is that every fish
1:21:29
aside from Walley uh gets released and I think we need to normalize Harvest uh I
1:21:35
love uh smallmouth bass uh you know you know in a beer batter it is so yummy but
1:21:42
my gosh I I this is probably the most publicly I've ever said that I know you're agonizing I would not throw a
1:21:49
picture of me chowing down or cleaning a smallmouth on my Facebook feet never
1:21:54
going to see that true isn't that bizarre though even you think the same way isn't that bizarre wow but I'd like
1:22:02
to add to Steven's points he definitely keep some fish but on the opposite end of the spectrum you don't always have to
1:22:08
keep your limit remember that too you know what I mean you don't have to I'm out I got to get my six in there and I
1:22:13
got to take them home and all that stuff catch your limit but limit your catch there you go exactly I remember that I
1:22:18
remember that from when I was a kid there you go where did I hear that we brought that back at the at the sports
1:22:24
man show we uh some folks here that on the team decided it'd be cool if if they
1:22:30
resurrected that whole logo and brand that we had in the 80s and people loved
1:22:36
it they loved it so there you go perfect perfect timing for is hooked on fishing
1:22:41
not drugs so yeah that that's it that's perfect my friend I want to thank you
1:22:47
yeah go ahead go ahead one last thing is also the think about the individual fish you're harvesting so hey even when
1:22:54
there's no length limits and you catch 10 fish don't take the biggest don't
1:23:00
take the smallest usually go for the ones that are in the middle uh and there's good reason for that in terms of
1:23:06
let the little ones grow big enough to at least reproduce once let those big ones stay because they've got the good
1:23:12
jeans that you want passed on so that you've got more big fish jeans in the
1:23:18
population uh and the ones in the middle are also you know they're the easiest to clean they fit in the fry pan it's the
1:23:24
best flesh quality uh you know you don't eat the the biggest oldest fish in the
1:23:30
population it's been living there for a long time and it is slowly accumulating contaminants as
1:23:36
well for better or worse there are you know that's just a reality in our our world you don't have to have a uh a
1:23:43
plant dumping pollution into a lake for it to be polluted because of precipitation Things fall from the sky
1:23:50
uh and then just natural pollutants methyl Mercury from uh wood degr tring and so on so those fish in the middle
1:23:56
are so perfect for so many reasons well said very well said on that not my
1:24:02
friend uh I want to thank you once again for joining us and what's coming up what's your next project by the way can
1:24:08
you share something with us oh boy uh so um spring is here it's like today spring
1:24:13
is here um so uh yeah uh we are already we've got spring fever so we're applying
1:24:19
for our permits uh we're doing our safety plans uh we're getting our uh
1:24:25
vehicle Fleet refreshed uh and we'll be hitting the water probably mid April we're going to
1:24:32
be doing some uh Telemetry work uh tracking fish on big REO Charleston Lake
1:24:38
of pentacon um everything from uh Smallmouth Largemouth lake trout on the
1:24:44
bigger lakes that I just mentioned some bofin work on Charleston um and uh we do a little bit
1:24:51
of bass removal work earlier you mentioned uh you know on occasion there's need to remove bass we're doing
1:24:56
a project in gatau park where there's a lake with endangered mollusks freshwater
1:25:02
clams or muscles uh and they need small fresh water or small minnow species uh
1:25:10
to be their host for the gladia to complete their life cycle these endangered mollusks and bass have been
1:25:16
introduced into one small Lake in one of the small lakes in gatau park and so we're trying to get them out of there so
1:25:24
wow uh so we're doing that by locating the nests fishing the males off and then
1:25:31
uh uh do just putting a whole lot of fishing effort in but it is a small Lake it's you know about uh you know three4
1:25:38
of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide so anything bigger than that and it
1:25:43
would be impossible did you guys get your life scope unit yet you were talking know get it buddy come on here
1:25:52
it's going to help you I'll tell you what we'll make you a promise you get a unit this year let us know when you get
1:25:58
it we'll see how our schedules can work out we'd love to come out for an
1:26:03
afternoon or a day and work with your staff and show you how this stuff works because it it's it's a game changer all
1:26:10
right all right awesome thank you Sten take care bu Dr cook little fish talk
1:26:16
with the doc never heard anybody like you said it's a favorite part it's it's yeah never heard anybody that's for sure
1:26:22
you can't get too much of it I could honest to God it's an 8 hour day job right there just listening to him that'd
1:26:28
be perfect he'd be a blasto in the field oh yeah but sure his students must just
1:26:34
love him uh for sure yeah it'd be fun work all righty keep an eye on fishing canada.com for all of the latest
1:26:40
contests whatever they may be come now ah yeah we just launched that one at the Sportsman show that's right that baby
1:26:47
was sitting right there you know what I didn't uh was there a lot of uh excitement generated with the we had
1:26:53
almost a thousand people enter it right at this in the booth there no kidding wow it is certainly unique looking there
1:27:01
is no question about it it is U I had a lot got the new shape of the Merc you know that little point of top and all
1:27:07
that stuff but yet very uh unique nice white and it looks electric it looks it looks it looks like an electric motor
1:27:13
for sure does anybody know uh I mean it says 7.5e does that mean electric 7.5
1:27:22
horsepower I think so does it I believe it does yeah believe it okay cuz somebody asked me that the other day and
1:27:28
I I didn't want to I didn't know so I didn't lie to him give like tell them
1:27:34
says that's right no no I not what I asked you if it was 7 is 7.5 it say so
1:27:39
right there the EAS for easy come on that's easy you should know that boy uh what else we missing Dean
1:27:46
got has a bonus code there do he really bonus code well speaking of speaking of
1:27:52
this lovely Mercury motor the bonus code for this week uh is
1:27:59
electric e e c t r i c all in capitals
1:28:05
look at you electric I'm an electric I'm electrician I'm
1:28:11
Electro yeah take that in get free 10 10 free entries uh to the contest by the way get a good chance of that sucker
1:28:17
right there imagine that wouldn't that be a beautiful be a nice price uh I don't know when this episode goes what
1:28:24
do they they drop them don't they yeah drop these you break you break many as you're dropping them or they need uh I
1:28:33
want to reach out to all of you that uh came and joined us at the Sportsman show
1:28:38
this past week uh spend a bit of time with us it it pleases us to
1:28:44
know to no end you have no idea how much we enjoy uh chatting with you and
1:28:51
spending time and exchanging War Stories together all of that stuff at these shows and we really appreciate you
1:28:56
coming out man it uh it was great to see each and every one of you very warm very
1:29:02
love it we're all friends absolutely absolutely loved it so thank you once again for coming out to the live event
1:29:08
for us all right that I on behalf of the entire crew of all over there Dean a
1:29:13
jean Jim Frank Bill Nick is over there somewhere studying and of course he's
1:29:20
Dean over there you've seen him on the whole show come on now I'm M thank you folks catch you next
1:29:26
[Music]
1:29:34
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Is Catch and Release Making Fish Smaller? | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 164

fishncanada.com

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Walleye in Great Slave Lake!? | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 122

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Outtakes and Bloopers 2016 | Fish'n Canada

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Is Catch and Release Making Fish Smaller? | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 164

fishncanada.com