The decision to change the regulations at Dolberg Lake was made by Athabasca-based Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) senior fisheries biologist Marcel Mancullo.
Mancullo spoke to County of Barrhead council at the April 17 meeting and said the decision was made based on survey results and a number of calls he received. In addition to Mancullo, AEP resource manager Curtis Brock and more than 20 area residents attended the public meeting.
The county extended the invitation to Mancullo and Brock in an effort to clarify the new bait ban and understand who initiated the call for change.
“Dolberg Lake is one that I manage. I provided a bit of background information and did my best to dispel some of the misinformation that has been in the media as of late,” he said, adding Dolberg Lake is a 30-hectare stocked rainbow trout fishery that is replenished by the province on an annual basis.
Traditionally, a liberal harvest fishery, Mancullo said Dolberg Lake was unique in that it provides excellent conditions for trout and has good infrastructure in place.
“A lot of the other lakes around here, there’s really only one objective and that is a liberal harvest objective. You often don’t get big fish out of liberal harvest lakes, but you can have different objectives for different species of fish at the same lake,” he said, noting fisheries management objectives, the goals and guiding principles of the AEP, include ecosystem objectives, indigenous fishery objectives, fish habitat objectives and recreational fishery objectives.
Because Dolberg Lake is an artificial ecosystem and is not the subject of any Indigenous treaty, neither of the first two objectives is relevant.
As far as managing Alberta lakes, Mancullo said they are a provincial resource.
“They are managed at a provincial scale because of this and it is largely driven by users of said resource,” he said, adding the biggest problem is that different users want different things.
Alberta does not have a lot of lakes, Mancullo said, but it has a lot of anglers.
“As far as the role of the county in sportfishing regulations, there isn’t any. It isn’t covered by any section of the Municipal Government Act. Consultation occurs with the public, not with the municipality,” Mancullo said, adding the lake is not under county jurisdiction.
That being said, Mancullo explained it was the AEP’s prerogative to inform municipalities of any potential changes that may occur.
“That’s why I contacted the county in November to say that there was a survey going on and that there could be potential changes,” he said.
However, County of Barrhead CAO Debbie Oyarzun argued that the initial correspondence between Mancullo and herself was indicative of a much broader conversation.
“I was of the impression that this was a general reach-out. Maybe I misunderstood. I was asked whom the point of contact would be with the county to discuss the concept of improving the quality of fishing at the lake, as well as potential trade-offs arising from possible regulation changes and affirmed that this would be me.
“On the 29th of November, I was informed of the meeting between [Mancullo] and the Barrhead Fish & Game Association. That’s all I heard,” she said, adding she had believed there would be further discussions between Mancullo and the county and was confused as to why there was no follow-up.
Oyarzun opined that she believed there would have been no need for a meeting had both parties worked together to advertize the regulation changes beforehand.
For his part, Mancullo said he wasn’t sure what the problem was.
“I said I was looking for input and at no point did the county ask me what the potential trade-offs or benefits might be,” he said.
Brock agreed.
“We recognize there may have been some miscommunication or misunderstanding with respect to the e-mail correspondance. We cannot turn back time per se but we can continue to move forward and do better in the future,” Brock said, adding the AEP has taken steps with the county to ensure this type of situation does not occur again.
With respect to the survey itself, Mancullo said two presentations were made — one to Barrhead Fish & Game Association and the other to the Northern Lights Fly Fishing Club.
“Essentially, I gave the presentation and talked about potential trade-offs, possible options. I surveyed both groups to see what they thought and afterwards, the surveys were made available to the public,” Mancullo said, noting they were available in Edmonton, at a store called the Fish’N Hole and in the Town of Barrhead at Kodiak Lake Hunting & Fishing.
Mancullo said surveys like the one undertaken regarding Dolberg Lake are driven by those who complete them and noted that there was poor Barrhead participation.
Out of the 102 surveys received, Mancullo said there was overwhelming support for stocking additional fish species, reducing fish limits, minimum size limits and a bait ban.
Conversely, he said, there was very little support for a liberal harvest fishery at the lake.
“Because Barrhead input was so low, I had a conversation with an angler who indicated to me that after the survey was done in January, there were quite a few surveys that he had obtained himself. Those surveys were brought to Kodiak Lake Hunting & Fishing and we picked them up, incorporating their results in the decision,” Mancullo said, adding that unfortunately, the additional 36 did not change the overall picture.
Mancullo said 95 per cent of the drive-to fisheries in the province are liberal harvest fisheries, including the 15 lakes surrounding Barrhead itself that are within an hour’s drive.
“The abundance of lakes with liberal harvest regulations in the area is great and that was one of the things considered. We don’t have a lot of quality or trophy opportunities however.”
In addition, Mancullo said he did not want to close off ice fishing, or make Dolberg Lake a catch-and-release fishery.
“The regulation in place still allows people to harvest fish, just at a larger size,” he said.
On a question from Coun. Ron Kleinfeldt regarding who initiated the request for regulation changes, Mancullo denied allegations from the public that any club was behind the decision.
“There was no club that was looking to do this. Ever since I’ve been in this job, I get more calls about Dolberg Lake than any other lake and the majority of these are centred around the idea of restoring the lake to ‘its former glory’ as it were.
“Because of the sheer volume of calls and in looking at the habitat there, I elected to do a survey to see what people were interested in seeing occur. It was me who made the decision because the habitat is pretty rare.”
However Coun. Walter Preugschas questioned whether or not it was important to have local input and wondered why none of the people in his division, where the lake exists, were asked their opinion.
To that, Mancullo reiterated that the surveys were available at Kodiak Lake Hunting & Fishing and that the county was informed.
“Surveying is based on sub-samples. You can’t go out and get every single person’s opinion. Not everyone in Edmonton got to fill it out either,” he said, adding the surveys were available from Nov. 29 to the third week of December.
