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MNR(F) proposed lake trout changes ?


turtle

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I was up at my cottage in Haliburton last weekend and read in one of the local papers (Highlander or Echo) that MNR(F) is looking at reducing trout stocking plus reducing limits and open seasons i.e. closing winter fishing. The article was talking about the negative impact to tourism etc.

 

Didn't bring the paper back and may have started the fire with it. Now I can't locate any mention of the article in the on-line versions of the two papers. And of course can't locate anything on the MNR(F) web site. Anyone heard about this or read about it or was I having a bad dream in between shovelling snow off the deck?

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Wouldn't surprise me in the least. Our lake trout winter season was reduced to 1 month (mid-Feb to mid-March), and there are far more fisheries in that area under heavy pressure I would imagine. I anticipate a closed winter season on lake trout and brook trout, with the exception of stocked fisheries of course.

 

And I would support it

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It's to protect the natural strains of lake trout found nowhere else and to take pressure off them and to increase natural production and promote more of the lakes that are stocked so that if people want to keep a fish it's where they should take one from !!! Haliburton lakers are under increasing threat from pollution over fishing and development it's many things !!!! I will try to find more info as I was going to attend one of the meetings

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Don't get too far ahead of yourselves... it (at least the new Zone 11 regs) started on Lake Temagami over 15 years ago because a cottage association lobbied the MNR to keep people from fishing in front of their places when they weren't around. There was no science involved... the lake hasn't been stocked in 30+ years and there's nothing wrong with the natural reproduction. Unfortunately the MNR took the most restrictive regulation from the areas they combined, when making Zone 11, and made it stand for the entire area.

For those in the Haliburton highlands... be sure it's science that is pushing this idea, as sometimes it's just smoke and mirrors.

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Don't get too far ahead of yourselves... it (at least the new Zone 11 regs) started on Lake Temagami over 15 years ago because a cottage association lobbied the MNR to keep people from fishing in front of their places when they weren't around. There was no science involved... the lake hasn't been stocked in 30+ years and there's nothing wrong with the natural reproduction. Unfortunately the MNR took the most restrictive regulation from the areas they combined, when making Zone 11, and made it stand for the entire area.

For those in the Haliburton highlands... be sure it's science that is pushing this idea, as sometimes it's just smoke and mirrors.

You could very well be correct. The MNR has a long history of DESTROYING the tourist trade over the last 20 years. I really feel sorry for some of the lodge owners recently by bad decisions of the MNR.

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I'd like to know what the actual proposals are and whether there is public input. In my experience on my cottage lake only, the lake trout fishing was only very good (for a cottage lake) during the period and a few years after the MNR stocked brook trout as a put, grow & take project. Very few brook trout were caught but in my experience I caught more and larger lake trout for a few years. The issue on my lake as I see it is that there are almost no forage fish (minnows, herring) and the trout are bug eaters (slow growing smaller fish) until a few of them get large and then eat smaller lake trout and bass. i am OK with a winter closure as I seldom ice fish there but it would impact tourism, I recall the article saying the proposal for stopping stocking is a budget cutback and not really about promoting natural reproduction. The lake I'm on hasn't been stocked in approx 30 years and all the fish are decendents of stocked fish.

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