steelhead

I voted for 50%. There are times I just leave it. But, I also fish streams that have very little human impact and there is no garbage to clear. I will however pick up any glass i may see and not the garbage. Campsites I will leave it better than I left it. I will clear butts, bottle caps, ciggarette foil and other such articles. This was learned form my days as a boyscout. Steelhead

Catchem for us. You are correct that the true poachers are the ones destroting the river with ATV's. Your work at trying to stop this will pay off and you will see a fitting end. At least poachers eat the 20 or 30 fish a year they get, not let whole generations of fish die of suffocation and lack of protection. Steelhead

Your point about people leaving to go to Saskatchewan, just excellent. Albertans are now the new Ontarians. Remember how we all hated ontarians, well, now we are them. No more friendly albertans anymore. Money, greed and the redneck ways have made us all that. Pretty soon were gonna be like old new yorkers. Theres no friendly people here anymore, not on the rivers, not downtown, they all just stick thier noses up and walk on by. Better than tou attitudes abound. Pretty sick to see it all happen in just 15 short years. Also to note, why didnt anyone ever hear about most or all of these incedents. the whole world heard it when CP rail had thier boo boo, but when an oil company does something, we never hear about it being locals. This province is the most heavily and continually poluting province in our confederacy, and its getting worse daily. Money and greed rules and it feeds of those who never made money like this in thier lives. I am one thats gonna head east in the future. This province has gone to crap and its gonna get worse. At least in the east, people arent affected by money like those in this province. Steelhead

Nice job at not specifying what method of fishing they were using. If you had to have said "spin fishers", there would have been 50 posts shooting them down and calling them poaching bait chuckers. Thank you Steelhead

Because barbless hooks dont stay imbedded in the flesh, and work themselves in and out while fighting a fish, the hook could have very easily travelled up and into the eye socket, and many other vital areas around the head, including nerve endings. This may cause the fish to be somewhat paralyzed in certain areas and make it swim erratically. Especially noted in trout as they are heavy fighters. There was someone fishing the hole before you and beat up on the weaker fish. Steelhead

no problems with Don here. Good (excellent) Job on his part. Thanks for our trout fisheries. I dont agree with him calling disaster relief for an area of river where no humans were or thier livelyhood were affected. The headwaters will never change course and feed everything below them. Its not a disaster if fish can still reach these headwaters. With these 2 rivers colliding, they still can. Its a simple fix like pushing the gravel back up into a dyke, something that happens all over this province and country yearly. Or soak more money out of the government crying disaster and getting a huge project going to fix a problem, only for the river to continue carving its way to where it wants to go, through the bigger project, unless its made of very thick and expensive concrete and runs for 3 KM's. Then your back to piling up a gravel dyke every 2-50 years. If it was full of cutts and bulls, i'm all for it. TJ With Don's persuasion with the government, you would think he would rally for more money to give to our fisheries as a whole, and not just small projects in his area. Hes done alot for trout, but not our overall fishery. I never heard of him helping sturgeon, pike, whitefish and walleyes. How about saving the fish in our whole province for us (ALL SPECIES, not just trout)? If you can get a bit of money for one small area calling disaster, you could get enough for the whole province by doing the same thing. I think this province is a disaster Steelhead

So what are YOU going to DO? My humblest appologies, but this is how I feel Nothing. It is a shame mother nature reclaimed and made the creeks run the path she wants. But with all the problems the alberta government has right now and no money to fix things, I dont want to draw attention away from other more important problems that havent been looked at in years. From death comes re-birth. I'm sure everything will be fine if left alone. And your calling disaster relief for the headwaters, miles from where the problem is? How about disater relief for those who were immediately affected by this, and will never get it. Time to rally volounteers and do it yourself, dont whine to the government expecting them to do something for ya. My tax dollars going to pay for 8-10 peoples concern on a river where the environmental impacts have not yet been determined. So, every 2-50 years, put the dyke back up like they did this year, and move on. I have fished Stauffer, and the clearwater, very nice rivers. Ontario Steelheader and TU member.