Anglers, hunters mark 25 years

[Spiel]

Anglers, hunters mark 25 years

 

Monday May 12, 2008

Dave Dale / nugget.ca

 

 

 

Paul Perron has a hard time bragging about one of the most successful projects undertaken by the Nosbonsing Anglers and Hunters.

 

As a founding member and longtime president, Perron was called upon Saturday to list the club's top achievements as part of its 25th anniversary celebration.

 

Rehabilitation of the Lake Nosbonsing walleye spawning beds and bass transplants into area lakes easily make the Top 3.

 

'We've got a good core group and we've done well," he said while eating cake in the clubhouse, purchased a few years ago.

 

The bathrooms were updated to handicap accessibility standards and there's more than four acres to expand.

 

They're even looking at a kitchen to feed members when they gather for meetings. The club has about 90 members, although it grows to as many as 150 depending on the issues at hand.

 

But it's the deer feeding stations that drew in and expanded a small Algonquin Park population that got out of hand.

 

"Everybody is mad now," Perron said, referring to complaints about there being too many deer in East Ferris while many other residents continue to offer feed in their backyards.

 

Many residents are now trying to protect their cedar hedges and gardens from the munching animals.

 

Perron said there were no deer in the township in the 1960s and hard winters made it difficult for herds to make a comeback on their own. Two annual pike tournaments - the 12th annual June 8 offers $18,000 in prizes and the 23rd annual Family and Friends event Aug. 17 - raise thousands of dollars toward activities and projects.

 

And the club has earned praise for its partnerships with police, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters.

 

Just a month ago, it donated about $2,000 to the ministry to buy a modern deer decoy to be used throughout the district to enforce safe hunting regulations and act on trespassing complaints.

 

The club, however, doesn't shy away from lobbying for change.

 

Perron said the new regulations for field management Unit 11 are going to make "unknowing poachers out of everybody . . . It's too much to absorb."

 

Before, everything was closed at the same time so when you saw someone on the lake you could tell if they were doing something wrong, he said.

 

The ministry says it was trying to "streamline and harmonize" regulations, but the enlarged zone now includes parts of old Division 15, south of North Bay, and old Division 18.

 

Lake Nipissing, Lake Temagami, Lake Temiskaming and the Ottawa River have their own regulations.

 

There is now a slot size for walleye and sauger with no fish permitted between 16.9 and 23.6 inches, with opening day for many fish sanctuaries pushed back to June 15.

 

Any brook trout longer than 12.2 inches have to be thrown back.

 

Northern pike anglers, particularly south of North Bay in old Division 15, are urged to review the new regulations.

 

The limit is now six for the sportsmen licence, "with not more than two greater than 24 inches, of which not more than one is greater than 33.9 inches."

 

Perron said he wishes the moose herds in Unit 48 can be "micro-managed" as well because the unit's east and west ends are vastly different.