From the North

Since last week's wicked weather turned white due to cold northerly air, it only made sense to head north to get out of the white blanket. Head north, where it was +15C late in the week, avoiding the cold, snowy runoff. We fished Swan Lake SW of Valleyview a few days. It was the first time we'd fished there and we were quite impressed with the scenery, size of lake, lake structures, and just how many fishermen the lake can hold. Honestly, it had been an awfully long time since Amelia & I fished a lake with 30 - 35 cars parked in the lot, but how we fished was so different from the locals that we felt as though we had the lake to ourselves. Hence, we had a wonderful time! As the lake is just a hair over 5 hrs from Red Deer, it provides perhaps a more tempting destination than even Bullshead. Neither is different, but if time permits to fish a lake for a couple of days, one can look at the Bullshead wind forecast and maybe opt a different direction. How was the fishing? Great.

Per fishing spring rainbows on prairie lakes, it's an interesting debate about how and where you fish. In these lakes, while there may be very limited successful spawning, the rainbows really do cruise around, sometimes concentrate in given areas of gravel. Case in point Patterson L in MB where the entire lake rainbow population congregates at the launch, or Swan L where a few doz congregate to entertain the bait fishermen. While it's pretty obvious that these fish are hepped up to attempt spawning, are they in any different condition than the rest of the lake's fish? Excepting Patterson where we saw no rainbows anywhere else in the lake other than 300m of shoreline, lakes such as Tokaryk, Ironside, Swan, Bullshead, etc have generally well dispersed populations of fish that are carrying reproductive goods. If you catch a fish on the gravel to the left of the boat launch at Bullshead that is spewing eggs, is it any more or less acceptable to fish for and catch trout than a fish 500m down the shoreline that also spews eggs? What of the opposite side of the lake? What if you don't know the lake and catch one spewing eggs? If it's not acceptable, do we close down these lakes to fishing so they get past their aggressive early season period? Remember, these are stocked trout that generally are not successful spawners in lakes that were designed as such. Do these fish have more or less rights? In a perfect world, there would be no fishing. At least from a fish's perspective. We're not advocating anything - just showing a couple different sides of something so simple. Take a lake, add trout to it. Then worry about where you are catching trout when the fish you put in to the lake display aggressive traits as they attempt to ineffectively spawn. Meanwhile, still allow harvest of 1 to 5 fish a day, using bait or not.
This is another of those posts that has no answer. Some folks will read this and ask why waste time worrying about playing with plastic fish, while the other end of the spectrum will suggest we close a lake or reach of a lake down - or at least brow beat the ethics of someone fishing these aggressive trout.
Ah, yes, the ethics and morality of fishing. Rather, their extroverted and introverted imposition and projections. It's interesting to mull over - if you're brain cramps that way. Have fun out there!
:)