possible more walleye cuts for nipissing

[sizematters]

Blah...blah..blah....We all know the REAL reason for depleted stocks, no matter what or where..it's us. The demand for wild fish is greater than the supply. The planet can no longer support our appetites. Save a fish......eat a cow.

[crosshairs]

Smitty yes the commecial guys sell walleye all over ontario and in the past into the states, the past couple years i have heard they now have sales for pike, perch, whitefish and some even sell catfish(bullhead). Apparently they had the herring tested and it is illegal to sell them because of the amount of worms in it.

As for the abandoned nets, the majority of them are tampered with, markers removed, cut into peices etc. I recently heard a well known musky guide from around the south shore was charged and went to court for tampering and taking the nets. they said he also had to pay for lost wages etc to the commercial fisherman. So this is a legal commecial fishery and net tampering and even harassment to fisherman while they are out working has some pretty serious fines attached to them. My buddy mentioned that the OPP and mnr are working pretty closley with them (creating a data base with locations,dates, boat descriptions)in regards to this issue probably because nets floating around would not breakdown for many many years and continue to fish and someone could get seriously hurt. They said "their nets cost about $150 a peice so why would we leave them, almost $1000 for 1 string of them".

[crosshairs]

With all due respect, did you think to ask this "well respected" biologist how it is that "starving fish" can have an accelerated growth rate??? Every fish I catch in Lake Nipissing seems fat and healthy, regardless of species.

Not that it matters but I also seriously question the numbers you've posted of fish harvested by anglers. I spend a lot of time on the lake, year round, and there just isn't enough of an MNR presence out there that they would have a clue as to what was being taken and I certainly haven't heard of any NFN people out there conducting surveys. So where do these numbers come from??? Is this based on some statistical nonsense? Does it take into account "catch and release" which most savy anglers practice these days?

As far as the fishing goes, this lake has the best walleye fishing I've experienced in my 40+ years of fishing. A bad day on this lake is as good or better than any other good day I've experienced on any other "drive to" walleye lake in the province. I question the data that the MNR uses to assess the fish population in the lake. I'm just not seeing it. What I am seeing is change in the habits of these fish, year to year, month to month, and week to week, in all probability based on the location and type of forage. Locations that I had amazing success on in 2011 and 2012 were barren last year yet a few hundred meters away you would find them just stacked on a slightly different piece of structure. They do move and they do school up by size. Find the baitfish, find the walleye.

My point is placing nets in the same locations every fall is a waste of time. What the MNR needs to do is conduct live trap netting in the spring to get a proper assessment of the population when the fish are in easily predictable locations. I haven't seen the FWIN data from 2013, but 2012 data suggested that there was another "bumper crop" of juvenile walleye. The MNR has repeatedly asserted that there are few spawning age fish in the lake, so where I ask are all these juvenile walleye coming from???

The growth rate is a sign of a stressed fishery is what i was told, but might also have something to do with the smelt as they are alot richer than perch, as for the 2013 FWIN i was part of it and very little YOY. The locations are not the same, but the depths are the same. They have so many shallow sets and so many deep sets, witht he 14 years of data sets they have for lake nipissing they know what is going on. The biologist I speak of predicted this 2 years ago, he is also the one that reveiwed the data from the 60's to 2011. I used to be a skeptic on science but after seeing these guys predictions year after year be bang on I am very comfortable with the data.

Apparently creel is occuring and the first nation has people out for their commercial fishery.

We will soon seen how many 46cm and over walleye there are won't we with the slot changed.

[rfb]

Sad.to say, but this is.the normal response every time a resource starts to go down the drain. People argue and rant and rave till its too late.and the.fishery collapses. I mean how many conservation success stories dealing with fisheries have we seen lately. I don't know about you guys, but the waters I fish just aren't what they used to be.

To really have the fisheries recover would take real.political will on the part of a government
But they will never do that because of the fallout from voters and special interest groups

[Big Jack]

LOL big jack believe me records are kept, i said this years ago when this all started the first nation is preparing for a court case, they have had ex mnr training their staff for enforcement, record keeping and it was the lake nipissing biologist Richard Rowe from the omnr who left omnr to work for and create this with the first nation. They want to be challenged, and omnr don't want to go there because it will show their incompetance. But it doesnt matter what i say you are obviously in the "know". So tell me why are they moving the slot to anything over 46 cm oh great one?? As for the starving fish their FWIN data also showed the fish are long and skinny compared to previous years, but i guess in court a judge would take your word over science. LMAO any how thank you jack for bringing smiles to my day, you must be a commedian.


Smitty why would they make up numbers?? Like i said thay are voluntarily doing this and why? probably for something bigger than simple management, land claim comes to my mind the treaties agreed to share the land, lakes and waterways are not in the deal plus with omnrs mismanagment leads me to believe they really want to go to court. At least thats what my friends have said.Why would they spend $400,000 a year for that departnment and have a FULL time bio when the omnr at best have a part time, most of the time the spot is vacant.
The omnr data reveiw showes something serious has been happening since the 60's but omnr wait till now when the lake is on verge of collapse to start looking at it. Sheer neglect on their part. And during the spawn the first nation has a moratorium so there is no netting and if there is it is no different than an angler keeping over his limit every race has there bad apples. Their moratorium is patrolled by their enforcement staff along side OPP and anishnabek police services. OMNR is asked to participate but refuse.


From what i was told the first nation has even asked the omnr to train their enforcement staff as CO's and the first nation would continue to cover wages, vehicles, office space etc. They said it has been 2 years and still nothing, omnr would have 2 extra CO's on the lake for the entire year for the cost of training and uniforms. It looks like the omnr just want to cause trouble rather than work together to make something work.

Alot of this info comes from the lake nipissing summits that nipissing frist nation started in order to share their information and data with all users unlike the omnr. The past 2 years it has been a two day event open to the public held at nipissing university/canadore and from i have heard the omnr where invited to share their data with everyone and they refused the first year and spoke on water mangement the second year. You can google it, i believe alot of the presentations might still be online.

Well maybe I am a comedian to you - glad I could make you smile. Keep your negative personal comments off the public form - you will get the thread locked. PM me if you wish.

To your comments -You see a report and I see the fish so thanks but I will believe what I see with my own two eyes. These are fat healthy fish.

Let me ask you something - What were the actual numbers taken in the commercial harvest last year???? Or the year before????
No guestimates, real hard numbers. If they are in existence why aren't they a matter of public record or provided to MNR?

I have only seen estimates, but what is that really?

This is not a "regulated commercial fishery". Voluntary quotas aren't going to do the job. Will the commercial fishermen on Nipissing conform to the regulatory requirements laid out for every other commercial fisherman in province? Would they accept the same treatment under law? Would they allow unfettered access and surprise inspections? I am guessing they wouldn't.

A regulated commercial fishing operation has to disclose every single thing about their daily catches and waste. Everything must be reported and more importantly there is oversight.

If there is contravention of law there are substantial punitive penalties. This does not apply to the Nipissing Commercial fishery as I understand it - or does it?

Please enlighten us.

FN know they have a right to do as they please on that body of water. Why would they give any of that up? There needs to be more buy in to the action plan on their part if they truly feel this resource is in trouble.

You reference a south end guide that got charged - who would that be? Where is this info as it is a matter of public record. Sounds like BS to me.

You want to fix this fishery? Get accurate numbers on the population and manage it from that point of view with buy in from FN. Meantime, get the stocking numbers way up. You may view it as a bandaid solution but at least it will bolster the walleye numbers.

I truly believe this is a premier fishery and this whole issue is based on bad information.

Just my two cents....

[rackman]

Seen in the north bay nugget limit to remian at 2 but must be over 18in, 46 cm was posted today

[smitty55]

Here's the mnr watch report. http://mnrwatch.com/lake-nipissing-f...nagement-plan/

And the EBR link http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-Ext...rchType=splash

Cheers

[grog]

Well maybe I am a comedian to you - glad I could make you smile. Keep your negative personal comments off the public form - you will get the thread locked. PM me if you wish.

To your comments -You see a report and I see the fish so thanks but I will believe what I see with my own two eyes. These are fat healthy fish.

Let me ask you something - What were the actual numbers taken in the commercial harvest last year???? Or the year before????
No guestimates, real hard numbers. If they are in existence why aren't they a matter of public record or provided to MNR?

I have only seen estimates, but what is that really?

This is not a "regulated commercial fishery". Voluntary quotas aren't going to do the job. Will the commercial fishermen on Nipissing conform to the regulatory requirements laid out for every other commercial fisherman in province? Would they accept the same treatment under law? Would they allow unfettered access and surprise inspections? I am guessing they wouldn't.

A regulated commercial fishing operation has to disclose every single thing about their daily catches and waste. Everything must be reported and more importantly there is oversight.

If there is contravention of law there are substantial punitive penalties. This does not apply to the Nipissing Commercial fishery as I understand it - or does it?

Please enlighten us.

FN know they have a right to do as they please on that body of water. Why would they give any of that up? There needs to be more buy in to the action plan on their part if they truly feel this resource is in trouble.

You reference a south end guide that got charged - who would that be? Where is this info as it is a matter of public record. Sounds like BS to me.

You want to fix this fishery? Get accurate numbers on the population and manage it from that point of view with buy in from FN. Meantime, get the stocking numbers way up. You may view it as a bandaid solution but at least it will bolster the walleye numbers.

I truly believe this is a premier fishery and this whole issue is based on bad information.

Just my two cents....

Don't waste your time.

[sawbill]

This I do know about a fishery. Knock it down and it takes forever to rebuild it. I'm talking years. It won't happen overnight.

[denny22]

Some pretty passionate beliefs being expressed here. Here's what I know:

In my 60+ years on this planet, I have always loved fishing and always lived in areas with high fishing pressure. I've seen ponds, lakes and rivers "almost" fished out. I've seen some successfully recover with good management (Bow River for one). What I noticed in every case is that good fishermen will always catch fish, no matter how much the stiocks get depleted. If there's one fish in a one mile stretch of river, it gets caught. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those guys, but my point is that if you are one of them, you will see the "problem" differently than guys like me. What we need is credible metrics, and funding to get the metrics. Until then, we don't have anything we can act on.