Starting next year, fishing tournaments like the recent Anglers Cup may be regulated by the province, says David Walty, the head of fisheries management for Fish and Wildlife.
The province has been looking at a proposal for licensing and management of competitive fishing that may be available for public scrutiny within a few a weeks, he says.
The policy will be published on the Fish and Wildlife website and the public will be invited to comment on the policy.
Pending review, it could be in force next fishing season.
The department has done several surveys on the subject that showed that the public is concerned about competitive fishing, says Walty.
The recent Angler Cup had a high mortality rate, he says.
“There was a lot of fish that died in that tournament,” he says. “It’s not acceptable in a lot of cases for a lot of these fish to die.”
Regulation would help ensure lower mortality in fish during tournaments, he says.
“That’s what managing tournaments is about --- ensuring the lowest mortality rates of those fish,” he says.
However, it’s difficult to say what tournament organizers would have to do differently if the event were regulated, says Walty.
“They had a pretty damn good system on this tournament,” he says.
Organizers for the Anglers Cup built a state of the art fish care centre that included a $1,000 WSI meter for monitoring the oxygen content and temperature of water.
“I know what’s going on in my tanks minute to minute,” says Tammy Kaleta, who ran the fish care centre.
During the tournament, lake oxygen was at 8.45 mg/L, but in the tanks where fish are revived prior to being released the oxygen level could be raised, she says.
“It’s basically the same as someone who has, say, been in a smoke filled environment in a burning house, the first thing they do is throw the oxygen mask on them and that’s basically what we do with the fish,” she says.
The purpose of the care was to keep fish mortality low, she says.
“We like to see at least less than 10 per cent die at a tournament but there’s so many extenuating factors that lead to higher mortality that sometimes you get much higher than that,” she says.
She won’t say what the mortality rate was at this tournament, but admits it was higher than 10 per cent.
“Yeah, a bit more than that,” she says.
Like Walty, she doesn’t know what could have been done differently.
“We had the best system that I’ve ever seen at any tournament for fish care,” she says.

Copyright © 2000 The Lakeside Leader. All Rights Reserved.
No part may be reproduced without written permission.

View our Privacy Statement.
Send website suggestions to the Webmaster