If you're one of the 330,000 anglers in British Columbia you've got reason to celebrate today: the government ANNOUNCED that it's giving about $3,000,000 more in funding to the Freshwater Fisheries Society, which will make their annual budget around $10,000,000 per year. They're boosting the budget for this organization which manages and stocks most of the lakes in our province by now giving them all of the revenues from the licensing fees that we the fisherpeople pay every year.
I got on the phone with Andrew Wilson, Vice-President of Sport Fishing at the Society, because I wanted to know exactly where this money will be going, and how it will benefit us. The immediate thing I thought was that they'd be putting more fish into our lakes but I found what it actually means is that they'll be putting it towards helping the wild stocks. So, working with regional biologists to identify priorities, working on infrastructure to help increase stocks, and perhaps working on compliance and enforcement work that'll keep fish in our lakes and rivers, not just put them there.
Wahleach (Jones) Lake, March 8, 2015
As an example, maybe they'll have more of a budget to send people up to Wahleach Lake (pictured above) to see how their stocking efforts have been doing there, then figure out how to improve them. By checking the STOCKING PLAN I can see that it's set to get 2,000 Rainbow Trout this spring, and I fished the lake this weekend. There are a few spot like this that I frequent and I'm looking forward to seeing all of the good that comes out of this injection of funds.
Oh, and if you know anybody who fishes for steelhead in our rivers forward this on to them. That might be the species that benefits the most from these efforts.
