jpinkster

I'd be very supportive of them looking at Mckinnon's as a possible provincial park/day use space. Would solve some of the nonsense we see going down there and could make a much more family friendly and habitat friendly access point.

Imagine that, the government acted on recommendations made through a survey. Now imagine if anglers had a more consistent and unified voice on the issues that we care about!

If they aren't going to protect bulls during the spawn, good luck with non-natives. We are really hoping that a few years worth of brown trout redd survey data may encourage the province to consider some localized closures in high yield spawning areas. Dare to dream...

Bow River Chapter adds their voice in support of protecting the Castle - http://bowriver.org/2017/03/15/castle/

This comment makes me really nervous. This is no time for folks to get complacent. We are already seeing some significant changes to the original management plan - many of those changes favour the OHV community. They are making their voices heard and rallying to this cause hard. I believe this government has the conviction to do the right thing, but they need to know that folks out there have their back on this. Fill out the survey, get your family to do it, get your friends to do it. We need to match their level of passion on this. https://talkaep.alberta.ca/CastleManagementPlan

Feedback from AEP suggests voices in the angling/hunting/conservation communities are not being strongly heard in this consultation. Some of the new changes to the draft plan are clearly responding to feedback from the OHV community. If you have not yet done the survey, get on it. If you already did the survey, you can add your comments to the new revisions. Don't get complacent folks, this matters! https://talkaep.alberta.ca/CastleManagementPlan

^ What he said. Sounds as though the responses to the government have been pretty evenly split between support and opposition. Government has noted the lack of support from the hunting and angling community. That's incredibly disappointing.

A little piece I wrote for the Bow River Chapter of Trout Unlimited Canada. Protecting our headwaters isn't just about what is going on in the Castle - this is an eastern slopes wide problem. http://bowriver.org/2017/03/05/its-time-we-got-serious-about-protecting-albertas-headwaters/

I was referencing the decision to made on PCR not Struble, should have been more clear. Transitioning a lake from a pike/walleye fishery to a trout fishery is the type of thing AEP should be gathering stakeholder input on.

Clearly you aren't paying attention. Stakeholder input is important with these decisions. "Doing your job" could be in direct conflict with what the public wants. Last I checked this is still democracy.

Not to sway anyone's responses, but here was the general theme of my feedback: - I'm not comfortable doing business with an organization as corrupt as the IOC. They keep saying all the right things about reform, but until I see it in practice, I'm not interested. - The assurances that this will lead to economic growth have been debunked time and time again. Host cities have a tendency to overbuild facilities that are heavily underutilized once the games leave. Who pays for those operating costs? What happens when costs can't be recovered? Tax payers will be on the hook. - Growth because of the Olympics is not strategic nor does it fit the long term vision of our city. Growth needs to be something that happens organically and should be a product of strategic policy from local government. Forcing development and growth into areas solely because of the Olympic games is not very forward looking.

What about the pike? PCR still has a few mud monsters. Trout won't last too long with them around.

Exactly the reason I don't post any of OHV content over there. Could you imagine?

Let's be careful before jumping to radical conclusions in that headline. Unless I read it wrong, this says nothing about killing off fish in the Bow. As it stands the only plan is to remove fish from Johnson Lake. I can't see a scenario where they would eliminate fish from river habitats (especially if there are native bulls/cutties present). There is precedent of this working well in Colorado. While I share some of the skepticism out there, I'm prepare to approach this with an open mind and see what the bigger plan is.

Yikes, that's a really big lake. Imagine how many fish they'd have to stuff in there to make it a viable fishery.

Pine Coulee has failed as a walleye fishery for whatever reason. While I'm supportive of the move to a trout lake, I can't help but think of the size of this lake. In order to have any kind of fishery they would have to put tens of thousands of fish into this lake every year. I did read somewhere the PCR has fairly high mercury content, that may impact whether it is a C&R or a catch and keep lake. Having a trout lake in this area would be a positive thing. With Chain and PCR hopefully a lot of the yahoos would stay off the native trout streams and pummel a bunch of farm fish instead.

The Oldman Watershed Council was kind enough to give me some blog space to share my thoughts on the future of OHV use in our province. The ideas aren't new, I've shared many of them in this space before. http://oldmanwatershed.ca/blog-posts/2017/2/15/hot-potato-ohvs Be sure you fill out the Castle Draft Management Plan survey. It sounds as though it has had poor uptake so far (less than 2,000 response - most negative). Don't miss out on this opportunity to have your voice heard.

It's a great read...but also a depressing read. Let's hope Alberta's fish populations aren't too far gone to be recovered.

I fishery with few small fish is not a good thing. Since WD impacts small fish, it would be really concerning if the scenario you described came true. I'd sleep easier seeing healthy numbers of recent recruits.

Burn your felt. All of it.

I was born in Edmonton, but moved to Calgary in 1991 when I was 4. My dad grew up fishing for pike and walleye around Edmonton growing up, so naturally that's what he got me into as a kid. We spent most of our weekends down at Travers Reservoir or Keho Lake chucking gear. We started to dabble a little bit into fly fishing since we lived so close to Fish Creek, but it never really caught on. As I got into high school fishing wasn't "cool" anymore, so I didn't get out much. It wasn't until a few years ago that a hockey buddy of mine insisted that I give fly fishing a try. 4 years later, and I'm absolutely obsessed (bet you couldn't tell). I've lived in this province my entire life, and I don't think I really appreciated just how great it is to live here until I started exploring with my fly rod. On a more personal note - I graduated from Mount Royal University with a degree in Policy Studies. I worked for two years as the Media and Public Affairs Officer for the British Consulate here in Calgary. It was pretty cool to work for a foreign government, and going to places like London and Washington DC for work was terrific. I've spent quite a bit of time since I graduated working on political campaigns. For the last 2+ years I've been working as the Chief of Staff for a City of Calgary Councillor who I had helped out on campaigns in the past. It's a great job, and I really feel like I'm doing work that makes a difference in people's lives. I get to be closely involved with many of the decisions that have the potential to make a city that I love dearly even better (but hey, that's a matter of perspective ) - Jordan

This is really ballsy. I like it.

Last week a very popular radio show in Edmonton had a discussion over three days on the deterioration of our multi-use public lands. It was an absolutely fascinating discussion that brought in voices from a variety of perspectives. Cumulatively it is a very long listen (about 100 minutes) but I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this topic. Part 1 - Interview with Stan Radke, a horseback outfitter based SW of Red Deer. Stan is becoming very concerned with the state of multi use trails in the east slopes and has been writing the government consistently to address the issue. https://omny.fm/shows/ryan-jespersen-show/feb-1-jespersen-11-00am-quadding-and-horse-trails Part 2 - Continuation of the conversation with Stan Radke. https://omny.fm/shows/ryan-jespersen-show/feb-1-jespersen-11-30am-quadding-and-horse-trails Part 3 - An interview with former Banff National Park Warden and esteemed conservationist Kevin Van Tighem. https://omny.fm/shows/ryan-jespersen-show/feb-2-jespersen-10-00-am-fixing-albertas-park-trai Part 4 - Interviews with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, The Honourable Shannon Phillips (Minister of Parks and Environment) and the Snow and Mud Forum (OHV group). https://omny.fm/shows/ryan-jespersen-show/feb-3-jespersen-10-00-am-protecting-albertas-natur I have a few takeaways and a few follow up ideas from the content in these interviews. I am really encouraged by the amount of airtime this topic has received and I am also encouraged that nearly everyone seems to be on the same page (or at least that is what they are saying). The current dynamic in our eastern slopes cannot continue - we absolutely have to do better. We need a new public land framework for these areas. We need to encourage responsible recreation use while demonstrating good stewardship of the land. That good stewardship can't just be lip service, it has to have the appropriate outcomes. What we need at this stage is some triage. First we need to stop the bleeding, second we need to evaluate the problem and third we need to apply treatment. Here's my vision for what a new framework could look like: 1) OHV use in sensitive riparian habitats needs to be closed. We need to allow the land to heal. I understand this is a difficult one for the OHV community to come to terms with it, but the science suggests it is absolutely necessary. There needs to be an understanding that many of the trails OHVs have been using for the last number of decades are not appropriate. This could mean closures of entire trails or detours/spot closures of specific areas on trails. 2) Creation of an OHV public land licence. This is the idea that Stan talked about in the first interview. The program would need to have full cost recovery - after admin costs, 50% would go towards trail rehab/construction/recovery and 50% would go towards more enforcement. Looking at the regulations facing most other public land recreation opportunities, I think this is entirely reasonable especially if we ear-mark funds back into the resource. The revenues ear-marked for trail rehab/construction/recovery must be put into a specific fund that would only be dedicated for trails. 3) Increase our enforcement capacity SIGNIFICANTLY. We need enforcement on trails and in our most sensitive areas. We can pay for this through the OHV licence, but I would also suggest it is time for a significant increase in the cost of a fishing licence. The increased costs would be entirely diverted into enforcement funds. 4) Penalties for public land use infractions need to be ramped up. The fines need to be greater and we need to have less tolerance for repeat offenders. Repeat offenders should have their vehicles seized. The legislation needs to be strong enough that a judge won't overturn a seizure where deemed appropriate. The penalties need to reflect the incredible cost of the damage being committed. 5) Creation of specific OHV use areas. I do not believe that mixed use trails work. Areas with active OHV use are not friendly places for other users. Hikers don't want to share the space, mountain bikers get pushed off the trails and horses are easily startled by OHVs. It's time to segregate these uses. We also need to segment OHV users into two groups - trail riders and high performance riders. I believe the high performance riders are the ones causing a lot of the damage (mud bogging, ripping through creeks, etc). We should create a network of world class touring trails that stay clear of swamps, bogs and streams while still offering scenic views and challenging trails. We should also create designated "go fer a rip" areas complete with jumps, artificial mud bogs, etc. If some folks absolutely insist on using their machines this way, let's give them a controlled environment to do it. 6) Transfer operations of trails to OHV associations. This is a common practice with a lot of snow mobile trails. An association would control and maintain a trailhead. Anyone accessing that trail needs to be a member of the association and pay to use the infrastructure. The association would control access but also maintain a level of stewardship over the resource. The trails would need to be periodically inspected to ensure compliance. This ensures that the continued maintenance of these trails is not on the backs of taxpayers and gives a sense of ownership for these associations. 7) Alberta needs progressive 21st century fishing regulations. The "one-size fits all" approach isn't working. Over-fishing is having a significant impact on our fisheries. We should be considering tags (rod-days), classified waters and seasonal closures similar to what we see in BC. There should also be specific permanent closures for areas that are noted high volume spawning and rearing habitat. This is already done on some specific areas on the Elbow and Sheep, but could certainly be expanded. Anyways, apologies for the long rant on this. I'm really interested in hearing your ideas on this. I think the winds of change are blowing right now. This topic is getting the right amount attention and I get the sense there is consensus from all user groups that something needs to be done. We may not agree on exactly what needs to be done, but I think we all appreciate that what we are doing now isn't working.

New article up this morning that gives some info on what transpired yesterday - http://www.calgarysun.com/2017/02/01/calgarys-new-river-access-strategy-aims-to-redraw-how-we-access-and-enjoy-them First and foremost, a big thank you to everyone who came out and presented yesterday. I think the members of committee and the media were really surprised at just how many people came out to share their passionate stories about why river access matters. You folks made a clear case that this was absolutely something The City should be prioritizing. I want to explain a little bit about what happens next. Navigating the tangled web of bureaucratic process cam be complicated, so I'll do my best to explain this in as plain of terms as possible: - Committee unanimously approved the administration recommendations. The recommendations asked Council to do two things: 1) Receive the Calgary River Access Strategy for information; and 2) Direct Administration to forward a business case for the high priority river access sites for consideration as part of the Investment Plan being brought forward by Infrastructure Calgary in Q1 or Q2 of 2017. - When an item gets unanimous approval from committee it gets sent to Council on something called the "consent agenda". Consent agenda is where you find items that were unanimously approved at committee. Typically the entire batch of consent agenda items are all approved at once. If a member of Council feels compelled, they can ask that an item be pulled from the consent agenda to allow for further debate and discussion. River Access should be on the consent agenda at a Council meeting later this month. - This item being approved at Council DOES NOT mean the River Access Strategy is funded. Approval at Council will initiate recommendation #2 that directs administration to send the business case to Infrastructure Calgary. Infrastructure Calgary is branch of The City that coordinates our capital projects and brings the budgetary requests before Council. If the business case is satisfactory it will be included in the capital project budget that will be brought before Council this spring. The immediate spend would be the $1.69 million to address immediate access projects. - The full program comes with a cost of $7.66 million. The balance of funding will be brought forward with the 2019-2022 Action Plan. The Action Plan is voted on by the new Council after the municipal election in the fall. The River Access Strategy would be one of the capital requests in the Action Plan that would considered for funding. We are not at the end of this process by any means, but we have made some very real progress. There may be an opportunity for more public input when the capital budget is brought before Council later this spring. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to let me know. I'm happy to shine some light on what can often be a confusing process.

Passed unanimously through committee. I'll put a more detailed response up tomorrow that gives the details on what happens next.