Leaderboard

Are you willing to change your behavior when fishing? Handling, where and when you target fish, what species you go after/and timing, techniques used (fish without your bobber....it is possible) Thoughts... "Another way to improve best practices may be to institutionalisevoluntary conservation ethics that transcend the basic regulatory requirementson C&R (Fobert et al., 2009; Cooke et al., 2013). For example,in the 2019/2020 Alberta Fishing Regulations, anglers are encouragedto avoid targeting fish species-at-risk such as bull trout andnative westslope cutthroat trout, and to voluntarily reduce their efficiency,i.e., “Practice this proven method to drop your release mortalityby half; catch half as many fish.” (Sullivan, 2019). Appeals to normativebehavior or ‘doing the right thing’, accompanied by informal sanctioningsystems (e.g., angling community appeals to appropriate behavior,and anglers confronting those who don’t use best handlingpractices), can be powerful social institutions."

There are many anglers out there, of all demographics, who simply believe they are entitled to catch fish by any legal means. Personally I've been lucky enough to have an accomplished fly fisherman and conservationist take me under his wing and inform me of some of the unwritten rules. No nymphing for cutthroats on the Eastslopes, dry flies only, same goes for the Raven, Stauffer, Prairie Creek etc. Targeting Browns in streams/creeks with streamers is in poor taste. My buddies and I fish the central creeks/streams for 6 weeks ish in the spring/early summer, catching a hand full of nice browns on dry flies, then we leave those waters alone for the rest of the year. I'm privileged in the fact that being a single man with expendable income and a work schedule that affords lots of time to fish and hunt I can pick and choose target species and bodies of water with the best potential but I'm not the norm. Educating the angling public is important for conservation but the fisheries management plan of this province has the drastically change to enhance opportunities.

I caught a bull by accident last year in a spot I didn't even know they existed. Other than that, a couple from streams in the last 10 years. The number of people going specifically to target big, staging bulls sure has increased. They are quite vulnerable being so visible sitting in their gin-clear pools I fish for Cutts about 3 days per year over the last 10 years. It is a treat to go feed them some dries on a special trip. I think they are too valuable to abuse. You can catch every one in a pool on nymph In the past BC had a "flyfishing only" rule on certain streams.... No bobbers, no attaching weights to the leader, single hook....I think we should do the same for the southern AB streams that are getting loved to death. It would be nice to see a few fish that don't have their mouths ripped up. They are only Cutts, work for them a bit