The REAL truth about Lake Louise Lk Trout and burbot

[mkwolfe]

25 year ago Lake Louise was my go to lake for burbot and lake trout- 5 fish limit was a guarantee. Keep a little one for shore lunch. release the big fish. Then around 4th of July back in 1993/94 I showed up at the lake for my yearly laker taker holiday and I observe 60 to 80 orange buoys floating all over the lake. I checked them out and attached to the buoy ropes are fyke fish traps. 8' long funnel fish traps. In the traps are lake trout and burbot. I asked the local lodge owner about the traps and he said that ADFG was doing a burbot survey. Ok- not a problem. I go do my thing and have a great time catching fish. I come back the next year and the buoys are gone and I get skunked fishing- not 1 fish caught. Never had that happen at Lk Louise. Went to all my favorite holes- nothing. Came back to Lk Louise 3 more times in the next 2 years- same thing- skunked. Talked to a good friend that lived on the lake and asked what happened to the fish. He told my that ADFG killed the lake by accident. When they set the fyke traps out they used rotten rope and a storm came up and broke all the buoys off. They did not have GPS coordinates for the location of the traps so they were clueless to where they had placed them. If you do not believe my story you can ask Dave Kellyhouse as he was the biologist in Glennallen at the time. So when ADFG tries to lay the blame on over fishing you can cry Bull****. It was caused by incompetent management practices.    Fish on

[mkwolfe]

Just a quick add on to this post- Fyke traps will keep killing fish until they fill up with dead fish bones- they are 8' long. The netting rots or ALL THE FISH ARE DEAD. Let the real truth be known.

[ak Laker hunter]

Bummer guess they could drag bottom to pull up traps would be hard snagging up all the time😦

[Akhardwater]

I doubt it killed off the whole lake maybe just the area where the nets were at.  It would take massive tons of fish decomposing to kill off a lake the size of louise.  I don't doubt the fact that it probably killed off some fish but there is no way it killed off the whole lake.  I know this for sure because I have seen and caught lakers that were well over 20 years old as well as burbot.  When fish decompose they release CO2 into the water reducing the amount of oxygen available and given wave and wind action it can actually condense CO2 in certain areas making the water toxic.  I am in no way calling you a liar so please don't take this the wrong way it dosent surprise me give how incompetent F@G is when it comes to managing the lakes up here.

[follower]

mkwolfe seemed to have some of his facts off, so I checked with ADF&G biologists in Glennallen.  The hoop traps mentioned were used to sample burbot (lake trout can also be caught) and this sampling occured annually from 1986 - 1996 in Lake Louise and 1986-1990 in Susitna Lake.  They also sampled Lake Louise in 1999, 2002, and 2005.  Upwards of 120 traps were deployed each year during the first 2 - 3 weeks of June with traps checked every 48 hours.  They said on occassion a trap may be lost, but this is rare.  Burbot populations crashed in Lake Louise due to over fishing with set-lines prior to 1991 when they were banned.  Burbot fishing was closed from 1988 - 2002 in Lake Louise and was reopened in 2002 to 1 burbot/day.  They said set-lines probably affected the Lake Trout adversly as well.  So it doesn't sound like the sampling project, especially in just one one year killed the lake trout fishery.

They said average harvest prior to the 1 laker/day over 24" regulation was 2,229 lake trout per year.  In 1994 the harvest was 1,463 and from 1995 - 1998 under the new regs annual catch was 2,808 and average harvest was 705.  They said their Lake Area Model projects that about 850 lakers can be sustainably harvested from Lake Louise each year when the regulations allow for any size lake trout to be harvested.  So it looks to me like the lake was probably over fished for a long-time.  And it seems the lake is providing a pretty consistent harvest opportunity these days still.  Don't take my word for it call the biologists in Glennallen at 822-3309 and ask them.

Oh yeah, Dave Kellyhouse was the Tok Wildlife Biologist, Director Wildlife Conservation, and the Fairbanks Wildlife Biologist.  He never served in Glennallen.

[Fishgod]

25 year ago Lake Louise was my go to lake for burbot and lake trout- 5 fish limit was a guarantee. Keep a little one for shore lunch. release the big fish. Then around 4th of July back in 1993/94 I showed up at the lake for my yearly laker taker holiday and I observe 60 to 80 orange buoys floating all over the lake. I checked them out and attached to the buoy ropes are fyke fish traps. 8' long funnel fish traps. In the traps are lake trout and burbot. I asked the local lodge owner about the traps and he said that ADFG was doing a burbot survey. Ok- not a problem. I go do my thing and have a great time catching fish. I come back the next year and the buoys are gone and I get skunked fishing- not 1 fish caught. Never had that happen at Lk Louise. Went to all my favorite holes- nothing. Came back to Lk Louise 3 more times in the next 2 years- same thing- skunked. Talked to a good friend that lived on the lake and asked what happened to the fish. He told my that ADFG killed the lake by accident. When they set the fyke traps out they used rotten rope and a storm came up and broke all the buoys off. They did not have GPS coordinates for the location of the traps so they were clueless to where they had placed them. If you do not believe my story you can ask Dave Kellyhouse as he was the biologist in Glennallen at the time. So when ADFG tries to lay the blame on over fishing you can cry Bull****. It was caused by incompetent management practices.    Fish on

This is your second post ever?? What's your agenda? I've used fyke nets for various species in Alaska. First, there is an opening that fish can enter and leave on their own accord. Secondly, fyke nets work efficiently when they are baited. Various types of bait are put into a container to attract the fish. Once the bait is gone, fyke nets are not very efficient. Thirdly, fyke nets are not indestructible. If the buoys did indeed become seperated from the nets, the nets would sooner or later start to roll on the bottom of the lake via wave action and the netting along with the spreader bars would be destroyed. So, if there are actually fyke nets from 21 years ago in Lake Louise, they are in bits and pieces. As far as conspiracy theories concerning the depletion of Lake Louise lakers and burbot, look here "25 year ago Lake Louise was my go to lake for burbot and lake trout- 5 fish limit was a guarantee."    Fish on

[akdube]

Was that a can of worms i just heard open up?

[Drifter_016]

I think it was.

[akwchil]

not sure what you mean by the lake being killed off, cause I was just up there and managed to put 18 lakers on the ice, all released successfully... so there's still plenty of fish in the lake.

[mkwolfe]

Well I now know why he is the self proclaimed FISHGOD. He thinks he knows and has seen everything. For a god he also has poor reading comprehension. I on the the other hand know what I know because I was THERE and here is what I saw. 60 to 80 fyke traps in the area of Lk. Louise where I fish- not the whole lake. Other post stated up to 120 traps in the whole lake during the time frame that I stated. Conformation that I spoke the truth. I then stated that the traps would kill fish until they filled with dead fish and/or they would rot. Other post stated that ADFG would check them every 48 hour, but you can not check what you can not find- truth. What I did miss quote was about David Kellyhouse- Yes he did work in Tok and not Glennallen. I now remember that I was up in Tok talking to him about ADFG spotting the next world record moose while conducting the 40-mile caribou survey. That is when I mentioned about the burbot survey at Lk. Louise. He mentioned the big oops but obviously that has has now been swept under the rug and forgotten about. So speaking of bad memories- yes it was 25 years ago and I said he worked in Glennallen- my bad. As for my statement about killing the lake, I did not state that ADFG killed every fish in the whole lake. What I said was that I could not catch a fish in the spots where I normally fish so I quit fishing there. Another tidbit of information that it was told to me by the lodge owners they bragged that while ADFG was conducting the fish survey they had caught a 55 lb lake trout in one of the traps- a new state record. When I later asked them about ADFG's little oops they didn't want to talk about it- bad for business, but the locals on the lake would talk. MY POINT was that ADFG is putting the blame on our (2) closely attended lines while their 120 were killing until the line rots.  As for the fishgod's underlying comment that blames me for the total annihilation of all fish and my comment about read comprehension- I stated that I ate a little one for shore lunch with my family and released the big ones. Nothing was mentioned about keeping or killing. The 5 a day limit was referring to easily being able to catch 5 fish a day. So fishgod you do know where you can stick that finger.

[mkwolfe]

I also wanted to mention that mother nature was designed to bounce back from great disasters caused by man and we can thank the true and all knowing GOD for that.