Lake Winnipeg Walleye at Risk!

[Lee Borgersen]

Sunday, October 4, 2015



   
      Lake Winnipeg Walleye at Risk!











In an effort to prevent the Lake Winnipeg/Red River walleye population from getting depressed, provincial fisheries officials have decided to conduct a sustainability review, which is expected to be completed something next year.

  ......
 Bill Galbraith, the commercial fisheries manager for Manitoba, is working on the review in order to establish target mortality rates in order to determine what action, if any, needs to be taken. Mortality rates on the big lake have many groups concerned that there might be a dramatic downturn in the numbers of walleye available both commercially and to the sport angler.

  ...
 Now throw in Zebra Mussels and things become pretty crazy. There has been a huge explosion in the population as major colonies are turning up along the beaches on both the west and east side of the lake as well as the Red River. New studies show that Zebra Mussels will not save Lake Winnipeg from blue-green algae blooms. In fact the opposite is true. Apparently new studies indicate that these little creatures are selective in the kind of algae they eat, spitting out the blue-green, creating even more algae blooms of this toxin.


Zebra mussels on eye-bolt and rope removed from Lake Winnipeg's south basin.

                                               

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Boar]

GGd dang, Ive been trying to get up there, gota go soon, aaaaaug!

[corny13]

Told ya....it ain't gonna last....

[snow1]

Might be tha last of the Big walleye lakes in our time,over fishing dinged Tobin lake SK years ago,no zebs,just folks killing large walleyes(over 10lbs)Not sure if Tobin was netted but I suspect it was,natives across oh-Canada net all year long from what I remember.

[Boar]

I remeber reading an infisherman article a long time ago about Lake tobin, they thought the new world record might come outa there.

[snow1]

Been some doozies come out of tobin years back,today not so much,local pro angler from white lake has the world line record,Jim Klick,a hair dresser by trade,crazy sob would run up there for a long weekend(back to work Monday morning) to catch these huge walleyes,his record is 11.4lbs on 4lb test,old record was 9lb+,klick had a 10.4lb in his well knowing he could stick a bigger one,while this was going on his partner stuck/landed a 15lb walleye(no record tho)

Northern states will have a problem beating the world record,can't remember?is it 21.5lbs or 25lbs? seems there was an issue on authenticity,the record comes from the south tho,seems they grow bigger and faster just like large mouth bass.

[Lee Borgersen]

Report shows economic impact of ice fishing on Lake Winnipeg

                          Update!:

11/4/18  Dis jest in........

Lake Winnipeg in the past 15 years has become the go-to destination for big walleyes in the winter, and the results of a newly released market study paint a powerful picture of the impact recreational fishing has on the region’s economy.

Lake Winnipeg’s big “greenbacks” mean big bucks to the Manitoba economy. Exponentially more bucks, in fact, than the commercial fishing industry that historically has dominated the big lake and a management approach that has driven walleye stocks to the brink of collapse.


“During the fishing season, I could probably fill another two hotels,” Andrea Gruyters, general manager of the Canalta hotel in Selkirk, Man., says in the report.

Commissioned by the Manitoba Wildlife Federation and several partners, the study queries the spending habits of more than 700 anglers who fish Lake Winnipeg in the winter.

Winnipeg firm Probe Research conducted the study, and the Manitoba Wildlife Federation unveiled the results Tuesday, Oct. 23, during a rally at the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg.

A few of the highlights from the survey:

Nearly 100,000 adult anglers fished walleyes on Lake Winnipeg and its southern tributaries in the past two years.
Those anglers contributed $221 million in direct spending.
That spending added $102 million to the province’s Gross Domestic Product and $44 million in wages, supporting more than 1,500 jobs and $52 million in taxes.
By comparison, Lake Winnipeg’s commercial fishing industry contributed $29 million to the GDP over two years, supporting 696 jobs -- or “person years,” as they’re called in the report -- $20.5 million in wages and $8 million in tax revenues.

While no one is calling for an end to commercial fishing on Lake Winnipeg -- which is where most of the walleyes you order in a restaurant come from -- the Manitoba Wildlife Federation and others are calling on the government to implement more sustainable fisheries policies.

Driven by a huge year-class of walleyes from a massive hatch in 2001, commercial netters pulled more than 10 million pounds of walleyes from Lake Winnipeg annually from 2000 to 2010, a number that now has dropped to less than 6 million pounds, the Manitoba Wildlife Federation said in a news release.

In response, the commercial fishing industry increased the mesh size of its gill nets to target larger walleyes, the proverbial geese that lay the golden eggs. Last year, three-quarters of the fish harvested commercially were immature, the MWF said, further jeopardizing the future.


“The issue of declining fish stocks in Lake Winnipeg is a direct result of commercial fishing policies that are not based on science,” Dr. Brian Kotak, managing director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, said in the news release. “The harvest levels are unsustainable.”

Hook-and-line anglers also are feeling the impact of declining walleye numbers, and trophy fish aren’t nearly as abundant as they were just a few years ago.

If that trend continues, I’m glad I at least have the memory of what ice fishing on Lake Winnipeg was like before populations began their downward turn. I’ll never forget the afternoon in 2013 or 2014 when a friend and I released seven walleyes from 27 inches to 30 inches long and lost several other whoppers at the hole.

Fish like that are the reason anglers come to Lake Winnipeg, and the opportunity to catch a trophy greenback is what will keep them coming back.

“The economic impact of both the commercial industry and recreational anglers can’t be ignored,” Kotak went on to say in the news release. “Both are valuable contributors to the economy, jobs and livelihoods and our shared heritage.”

The challenge, he says, is finding a sustainable balance, a balance that won’t happen without a change in how the lake is managed.

“It needs to be about supporting families in commercial fishing as well as supporting tourism and angling opportunities,” Kotak said.

A full summary of the survey results is available on the Manitoba Wildlife Federation website at https://mwf.mb.ca