Live Well Ban????

[Some Old Guy 968]

Possible Live Well ban being discussed.

Live Well Ban

Roger

[AB 98]

I wonder what response NOTO expects from the general public on this? Perhaps we could give them some early reactions! Here is some contact information I found on their site.

Doug Reynolds, NOTO Executive Director

Ph. 705-472-5552 x23

Email: doug@noto.net

Let's let them know what we think!

iceman

[Guest Eye Guy]

I've always had mixed feelings about their use. The first thing my dad did when he bought his boat a number of years ago was disabled the livewell. I hated it at the time. I wanted to be able to upgrade, but my dad was very against it. He was always of the opinion that the majority of fish released after spending much time in a live well wouldn't make it. So although I do upgrade a bit, I'm always a little skeptical doing it. My dad was very wise, but the other side of the argument in my head was that so many experienced fishermen and tournament organizers did it, maybe dad was wrong. Right or wrong, he certainly caused me to limit the amount that I do.

[tracker 61]

I think with increasing fees that we have to pay, why would anyone support live well bans, bait bans, hook bans, catch and release etc... This should be your personal choice. In the end it all results in lost opportunity that we would never get back. Just think about where the spring bear hunt ban got us. Why does fishing have to be so complicated???

[mad scientist 140]

A bit of light reading....

Walleye: http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/stdprodconsume/groups/lr/@mnr/@letsfish/documents/report/282313.pdf

http://www.srd.alberta.ca/FishWildlife/FisheriesManagement/documents/CFE-MortalityComprehensiveSummary-09.pdf

http://pubstorage.sdstate.edu/wfs/411-F.pdf

Bass: http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/publications/bitstream/1840.2/477/1/Kwak_%26_Henry_1995.pdf

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/fisheries/info_sheets/cr_mortality.pdf

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/inland/livewells.phtml

And how Alberta is dealing with it (page 7): http://www.mywildalberta.com/fishing/licensingfees/documents/CFEBestManagementPractices.pdf

[James01 223]

Possible Live Well ban being discussed.

Live Well Ban

Roger

Roger, I worked for Mike at Silver Water Wheel Lodge a number of years back (see the first comment in the link), and I trust him on this. The fish kill policy is one I would not be against seeing implemented province wide (I do it anyway)... granted, the policy would likely be the death of fishing tournaments province wide as well. I do find the practice of culling a limit a tad unethical, and fish killed immediately and thrown on ice are a pleasure to clean.

I had the pleasure of spending a summer guiding on Lac Seul for Mike, and I experienced what the fishing on that lake is like. It would be far too simplistic to attribute the unreal fishing to the lake's fish kill policy exclusively (it has had one for a number of years now), but something makes the fishing unreal and the policy is certainly part of whatever that is. Progressive thinking is what we need to protect the great fisheries around this province - and if that means the death of fishing tournaments as we know them, well... I am sure some people who post on this board were not thrilled with the one over eighteen rule for Walleye when it first came in, but it seems to me the rule has been a resounding success. I have never caught (and released) as many large Walleye as I have post the one-over-eighteen-rule.

I am sure that IF the fish kill policy were implemented province wide, a few people would still cull, just as I am sure there are some people out there who continue to keep more than their limit and more than one over-eighteen'r. I cast this last bit out there for the inevitable criticism that the rule is silly because it is next to impossible to enforce across the expanse that is Northern Ontario. On that note, I was on the upper reaches of Pakashkan last weekend, and I met with not one but three C.O's. One at our campsite, and two way up the lake where I never expected to see them. Had I been doing something wrong, I would have been nabbed for it in the middle of nowhere.

[Guest shabaz]

I think it would cripple the sport of tournament fishing. In this region we have some of the most talented Fisher people in the world and killing tournament fishing by banning livewells would be like killing racing by putting speed limits into effect on ontario tracks or killing hockey by banning slapshots and body contact in Ontario. Every sport has a dark side but eliminating sport rather than simply doing our best and taking proper precautions is utterly insane.

[Some Old Guy 968]

I don't eat fish. I like catching them. I release all of my fish. I like tournament fishing only.

How would you argue that one?

Implement a kill policy and there goes tournament fishing. Unless it was a catch and kill tournament.

A dead fish never has a chance. Never. Yes I agree some do die but not all of them. I don't even think of the majority of them die. Roger

[JLoew 0]

I agree with Roger on this one. I believe it would be totally ridiculous to eliminate live well and cull fishing. And like Roger stated, who is to say you can't have a catch and kill tournament, as long as legal catch limits are followed and the fish don't go to waste. What we fail to remember, is that nothing gets wasted in nature, it is sometimes in our own greed of human nature to believe all resources are for us and only us. We tend to forget there exists a natural food chain where eat or be eaten is the name of the game. With saying that, the small percentage of fish that may possible die after a tournament release still don't go to waste. Somewhere along the line is either another game fish, perhaps a snapping turtle, fox, or for sure an eagle that would gladly accept the offerings of an expired fish, which results in one less they would just have to kill anyway down the line. Not to say I like seeing a dead fish caused from a bad release or mishandled fish in a livewell, but the fact is it may happen on occasion and nature always cleans itself up.

On the flipside of that, perhaps the catch and kill policy may be even more destructive as the small percentage of the "non-caring" fisher person out there may possible just kill and cull anyway, if they feel no one is watching. That would be way worse than releasing a livewell fish that has a high percentage chance of living versus the release of an already dead fish that a uncaring fisherman decides to cull to upgrade his daily catch. Believe me, it will happen by a small percentage of anglers that have little respect for regulations anyway.

[arvey 154]

when i'm out pleasure fishing i don't practice culling any fish. if walleye fishing and i want something to eat and i catch 16 inchers i put them in the well real small goes back and bigger ones go back i don't even put water in the well , i just rather have them there than dragging them on a stringer. i wonder how many times an angler has lost the stinger with fish on them? wrong doers are wrong doers and no amount of regs. will change that . these types of things only affect people who are willing to follow the rules.

arvey

[mad scientist 140]

Don't lose sight of the fact that this is a NOTO debate; it's not about tournament fishing, it's about American tourists playing 'bird in the hand' before they choose which fish they want to whack.

[AB 98]

Anyone remember the days of stringesr of fish hanging over the side of the boat, dragged around to drown, or suffocate in the bottom of a boat. If you can't use a livewell, are you going to legislate how people store fish in their boats next?

Does someone out there have the impression that fish live forever, and that they go to fish restaurants to eat when anglers aren't on the water????

Perhaps the next fisheries enhancement project should be to build old age homes for fish, or relocate them to southern waters in the winter when they get old enough ???

This is coming out of NOTO, but could have wider implications.

Perhaps a few tourist outfitters should advertise that as a their guest in the resort, they will enoy wonderful fishing oppurtunities, for about a half an hr each day before they have caught their limit and must get off the water and lock themselves inside their rooms before they hurt the wildlife.

Going to be interesting to see where this goes!

iceman

[Some Old Guy 968]

I am wondering, is this catch and kill policy on Lac Suel just for walleye?

Roger

[WalleyeWayne 137]

I recall back in the day when livewells became the "saviour" for fishing. Now, some believe they are the demise of fishing. Nowadays if you buy a boat bigger than a 12' skiff....there's a good chance it has a built-in livewell. There is obviously big money for boat-makers including a livewell so I believe the ban will not happen - too much pressure by manufacturers like Lund, Crestliner, Princecraft, etc, etc, etc for that to happen. These boat makers contribute a ton of sponsorship money to tourney's so their voice will impact any/all decisions to ban the wells!

[Pro fisherman-Stud Muffin 420]

Roger ya far as i know just walleye .and not just lac suel also pelican Abraham and Minitaki are included in those regs. only real negative aspect is the tournament fishing.

if you are keeping fish then tilt head back till you hear a snap, if you aren't keeping then release it. .and even in their tourney only a limit a day allowed so 4 fish killed per day per team. 500 in 2 days isnt really catastrophic on that chain of lakes

i should also add these lakes have a no fish 18-21 inches slot size(and also a pike and musky slot) so those are protected . dont know if its just that english river system or their slot size / regs but fishing is way better there than we have it in lac, dog lake and whitefish.

its basically like ice fishing, no live well

[seppi 19]

Is there walleye in China , because I'm tired of all the red tape being implemented in our land of the free! ( Ontario) I sure feel like Ontario is getting more communistic then China !!!! Pretty soon my wallet is gonna be bigger then my laptop from all the licenses we have to carry !! And it's not from all the money I have ,for some of the fellows in the peanut gallery out there !! LOL

seppi

[mad scientist 140]

Roger ya far as i know just walleye .and not just lac suel also pelican Abraham and Minitaki are included in those regs. only real negative aspect is the tournament fishing.

The wording in the regs is "No person may possess any live fish taken by angling other than baitfish." So it applies to all species.

As for where: "Lac Seul, including Broad, Sunlight, Root RIver, Vaughan [Whitefish Lake] and Lost Lakes, and Wenasaga River from the first rapids upstream from Lac Seul aproc. 3 km downstream to the last group of islands."

AND: "Minnitaki Lake, including Abram, Duck, Hidden, Pelican, Botsford lakes and the English River, Red Pine Bay, and Rice River".

[Lyle Reiner 174]

I can see both sides of the argument. I do believe livewells work well and if properly used, they can be a great fishing tool.

Instead of a livewell ban, maybe they should impose a general slot size of say 15-17.5" are the only fish allowed in possession. It would limit the upgrade and not kill the tournament industry.

The death of the competitive fishing would hurt small towns economy. I bet a few hundred grand comes into g town when the Derbys there. I know I spent a lot

[Fishbum 35]

I think scraping the use of a live well is worse than having someone put a fish in the live well, then releasing it ( given its alive still ) for an upgrader. If you think about it.. not saying everyone would but some fishermen may if you have a kill only possesion like lac suel than if someone kills and keeps a say 14 inch walleye, then gets three more 16 - 17 inches and a fourth 18 incher...whats he going to do just toss that smaller dead fish away for the birds and keep the upgrader. I like to think most honest fishermen wouldn't toss a fish back if it was dead ( from a livewell or a cooler with ice).

At least if the fish is alive and swimming and is released it has a chance to get to cold deep water and recover...but once its dead there is no comming back. I could see that being more harmfull to a fishery than have a few fish released after being put in a live.

[James01 223]

Is there walleye in China , because I'm tired of all the red tape being implemented in our land of the free! ( Ontario) I sure feel like Ontario is getting more communistic then China !!!! Pretty soon my wallet is gonna be bigger then my laptop from all the licenses we have to carry !! And it's not from all the money I have ,for some of the fellows in the peanut gallery out there !! LOL

seppi

Iceman, I believe 'we' already legislate how people store fish in their boats, its the no spoilage law, i.e. one cannot allow any part of the game/fish to spoil or go to waste.

Seppi, "communistic"? Really? Stop, you are embarrassing yourself.

And Roger, as I recall (and I believe it has been mentioned already), the kill rule on Lac Seul applies to all species outside of baitfish.

edit: The problem with live wells is the warm water it draws from the lake; is there a feasible way to keep the water cool? Ice packs?

[Some Old Guy 968]

There are many more factors than the live well drawing warm water.

In Whitefish Lake you can keep walleye alive in your well for days if you keep drawing the surface water into your well. Same as Kenogamisis. Maybe in and around Sand Point area.

There are issues with live wells such as timers. These I don't believe in unless it's to keep your bait alive. Live wells should be on constantly unless you are moving at plane speed. There are sytems that use the force of your boat while moving forward to draw water into the live well.

When you catch walleye deep, there the temperature becomes the issue. If you catch them even deeper then it's the bends that cause the issue.

Now we come to airated live wells. These sound like the greatest thing. Unless they can refridgerate the air drawn in then they will heat up the water. Example. The water temp is 75 degrees and it's 85 degrees outside then this warm air drawn in to make the bubbles will heat the water and possibly kill fish.

Roger

[Guest Munshaw]

I think with increasing fees that we have to pay, why would anyone support live well bans, bait bans, hook bans, catch and release etc... This should be your personal choice. In the end it all results in lost opportunity that we would never get back. Just think about where the spring bear hunt ban got us. Why does fishing have to be so complicated???

So your reasoning is that with increased fees, it should be a free for all left to each individual angler to decide what and how much we are going to keep? You're insane! Welcome to the current CENTURY buddy! It's called REALITY. Hopefully your opinions have no clout in NOSA whatsoever, because if that lobby group you represent feels the same way, they have their heads on backwards.

Guess what!!! We've been losing "oportunities" due to overharvest since the dawn of fishing. Unless everyone takes steps towards conservation (which is what this is really about) our kids will have the "freedom" in Ontario to catch.... NOTHING!

Or wait - maybe we'll be like most of the U.S. and hopefully with no walleye left, the perch population will skyrocket! While we're at it, lets up the limit of perch to 100! After all, by then we'll be paying even more for licences!!! Panfishing at its best - here we come!

You sound like the NRA of fishing...

[James01 223]

There are many more factors than the live well drawing warm water.

In Whitefish Lake you can keep walleye alive in your well for days if you keep drawing the surface water into your well. Same as Kenogamisis. Maybe in and around Sand Point area.

There are issues with live wells such as timers. These I don't believe in unless it's to keep your bait alive. Live wells should be on constantly unless you are moving at plane speed. There are sytems that use the force of your boat while moving forward to draw water into the live well.

When you catch walleye deep, there the temperature becomes the issue. If you catch them even deeper then it's the bends that cause the issue.

Now we come to airated live wells. These sound like the greatest thing. Unless they can refridgerate the air drawn in then they will heat up the water. Example. The water temp is 75 degrees and it's 85 degrees outside then this warm air drawn in to make the bubbles will heat the water and possibly kill fish.

Roger

Some randomness...

So, I guess what you're saying is that there are no real solutions for live wells, other than some sort of refrigeration system for both air and water (I add water because I think drawing warm surface water is still an issue - apparently, one among many). How feasible is that? Maybe we stumbled upon the next million dollar idea for Lund or Crestliner, or some other boat company (I call dibs on the idea) - heck, tournament boats already cost as much as a small house, why not a few extra thousand for a cooling system? I am being a tad facetious - but not about calling dibs on the idea.

Keeping fish alive for days in a live well, hmmmmmm. Putting the ethical and legal implications of doing this aside, can I find out what brand of marine battery you are using? You don't believe in timers, and your boat is not going to be running all night long (to force water in, nor to charge the battery) so I assume that your live well is running all night long while your boat is docked or beached; and as a word of warning, I wrecked a few pumps running a live well while the boat was beached - sand is not a friend of pumps (I started taking the bait out of the live well, and putting it in the lake off the back of the boat, and my fish were usually on ice in a cooler, so I stopped 'running the well' while I was beached).

As I see it, there are two conversations going on here (actually, there are quite a few more than that, but many are not worth acknowledging - like the argument against 'communistics' and the "they're gonna die anyway" argument; stupid people will die someday too, but I am told that my desire to speed along their demise is wrong). The first concerns the impact a kill policy would have on tournaments. And this is a valid concern for people who enjoy tournament fishing. A traditional tournament could not work and a 'kill tournament' probably wouldn't work... hundreds of dead fish coming in to be weighed would be great ammo for people like the fellow who wrote in to the paper a short while back, and for PETA activists (even though they are nuts). And what does one do with hundreds of dead Bass or Walleye? Legally, one cannot sell them - and I don't think they can be donated. And the other issue is the conservation side of a kill policy, and how sensible it is. It seems to have helped on lakes like Lac Seul... but some people here seem to believe that fish released from a live well do fine. I don't know the answer to this, but I do know that I am against culling.

And, I have a question for Walleye tournament fisherman (it is a little off base): How do 'you' get around the one-over-eighteen rule? Fish in your live well are in your possession, hence three 24'' Walleye and one 30'' should be a violation of the law, shouldn't it? Does the tournament apply for a permit that allows tournament entrants to circumvent the law? Come to think of it, if the fish are indeed dying because of stress and their time in a live well, that is a lot of big Walleye dead as a direct consequence of the tournament. Now I might be against tournaments...

[Guest Eye Guy]

_{Now look what you've started Roger.}

[Some Old Guy 968]

Ok....

So, I guess what you're saying is that there are no real solutions for live wells, other than some sort of refrigeration system for both air and water (I add water because I think drawing warm surface water is still an issue - apparently, one among many). How feasible is that? Maybe we stumbled upon the next million dollar idea for Lund or Crestliner, or some other boat company (I call dibs on the idea) - heck, tournament boats already cost as much as a small house, why not a few extra thousand for a cooling system? I am being a tad facetious - but not about calling dibs on the idea.

Refirgeration is not an answer because of thermal shock to fish whether you put them into the live well or release them.

Keeping fish alive for days in a live well, hmmmmmm. Putting the ethical and legal implications of doing this aside, can I find out what brand of marine battery you are using? You don't believe in timers, and your boat is not going to be running all night long (to force water in, nor to charge the battery) so I assume that your live well is running all night long while your boat is docked or beached; and as a word of warning, I wrecked a few pumps running a live well while the boat was beached - sand is not a friend of pumps (I started taking the bait out of the live well, and putting it in the lake off the back of the boat, and my fish were usually on ice in a cooler, so I stopped 'running the well' while I was beached).

For days I mean that the water temp in these shallow lakes vary little to nothing from top to bottom. I don't keep them in my well for days. I was just saying. So for the ethical and and legal implications we can now throw that out the window. As for keeping the bait alive. Battery is on a charger at the dock timer in use on the live well. (My pump will run all day during a tournament 8-4 and sometimes later)

I'm not against culling so long as my fish are alive and kicking. A stressed fish will be kept. In a tournamnet situation the fish would be brought in right away and best efforts will given to try to keep it alive. A dead fish or a stressed fish is the property of the angler and is responsible for it. In other situations many tournaments are run by 1st nations and these fish are not wasted. Even on the very very very off chance that there were hundreds of dead fish.

As for your last comment/question.

Walleye and bass tournaments are a two person team event. The weigh in limit for these are reduced. Meaning only 5 bass (instead of 8) and 6 walleye two over 18 inches and 4 under 18 inches (instead of 8) can be weighed in. These smaller numbers are so the fish are not over crowded in live wells.

There are provisions in the regs so that I can cull. So I do. There are provisions that you can kill 4 walleye per day. If you eat them all in the same day you may go get 4 more and eat them.

I choose not to kill any of them unless they are hooked deep and will die. I eat maybe 10 walleye on any given year and this is mostly ice fishing. (sometimes I am given walleye to eat!!!!!!!)

Roger