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I agree with much of what you say here Sparkplug; yet much of what you are advocating for; isn't that already happening? Aren't we already concentrating on a small # of lakes? Based on my anecdotal observations of fishing Muir lake, and what many here have to say about Beaver (I'm relying on Don's comments alot) is that QSF fisheries are in heavy demand. And QSF's are relatively few compared to the total amount of put and take fisheries; so wouldn't that already qualify them as being a showcase fishery? And yeah, you said the magic work - 'yet'. And let's hope many of the beloved QSF's stay uninfected with perch. Could be a matter of time, unfortunately. The bios / gov't are reluctant to "convert" long-existing, traditional keep 5 trout a day lakes over to QSF's. Lots of pushback from the keep and eat crowd. Very tough to "transition" them. Lots of QSF's are "new" lakes such as the cluster of Pit lakes south of Robb. Those are much easier, politically speaking. And, absolutely, there will always have to be put and take fisheries. The problem with including perch is the (relatively) incompatible species issue. We already have plenty of cool-water lakes that sustain pike-perch-walleye-whitefish. What needs to happen here is education. Anglers should not be associating our trout stillwater fisheries as a source of "good" perch fishing. It's that simple. You might as well capitulate then and stock the pike, and have a Cow lake situation. Culturally speaking, that's the transition I'd like Alberta to go to over succeeding generations; keep the damn perch out of our trout lakes and accept it! lol Might take an existing QSF to get "ruined" by perch before the gov't takes drastic action and truly rehab lakes. So ya, step up enforcement, toughen fines, and concentrate on creating new fisheries into QSF's. Anyways, tough issue with gov't complacency and angler apathy (true for the vast majority of the 270,000+ licensed anglers).

I think Trailhead hit it on the, er, head here with this comment - the catch-and-keep group (of whatever - trout, perch) is (very?) large. Thus I wonder, might our quality trout fisheries objectives be better served by concentrating only on a small number of lakes (at least at first), as showcase projects, and leave the rest for the catch and keep crowd, if they so love their stunted perch or heavily stocked trout? Essentially, supply and demand - keep up the supply of the put-and-take fisheries (as hard as it is to write that), while working to transition some waters to QF trout status. Others on this forum know better than I do (and will I'm sure correct me, if what I'm about to write is wrong), but our experience to date with lakes such as Muir, Beaver, etc. that have seen more effort towards the development of QF's there have not been subject to illegal perch stocking (yet). So maybe QF trout waters will continue to be respected, if there is still a supply of put-and-take fisheries (including some with perch). Perhaps the only blanket regulation change should be a significant increase in penalty for being caught/convicted of transporting live fish. Both sides of the perch zero retention/liberal retention debate discussed here have merit. But maybe a doable "win" for us is to at least get some increased focus on creating a few more higher quality trout fisheries first, with tighter regs, stepped-up enforcement, etc., rather than try to come up with a province-wide magic bullet change.