https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016FLNR0279-002401BC freshwater fisheries are thinking of lifting the catch and release regulation for Bass on Vancouver Island .
It is a way to control an invasive species..
Hopefully the feds will take the same approach and look at the Cutty populations
Like the people that put them in the Fraser river....Where it becomes a problem is when illegal transfers occur.
From Fishing Synopsis, 2015 - 2017
BEAVER CREEK, chain of lakes
Area 5-2
No Fishing for bass
Includes:Beaver, Chambers, Joan, McCauley, Opheim, and Roberts lakes, Lake George, and the unnamed lake known locally as
“Rye” lake.
I noticed this last year, why would they do this if it is an evasive species?
Is the ministry running some sort of experiment on these lakes to find out the variability of bass in the region?
Bass were stocked by the provincial govt 60 or more years ago in many southern island and Gulf Islands lakes. Those were legitimate introductions by our provincial fisheries dept. They have coexisted in the lakes with the native species for over half a century. Where there has been problems it has been because of idiots illegally transferring perch or bass to other waters. I grew up on a lake that the government had stocked bass in. The bass grew to six pounds in that lake and so did the cutthroats when I was a kid. They both thrived together and reached very large sizes in the same lake. The lake was not attached to any other water system so there was no possibility of them invading and impacting other rivers or lakes. Brown trout were stocked by the provincial government in many South Island watersheds as well. The introductions didn't take in most places, and brown trout only remain in a few systems now.
Where it becomes a problem is when illegal transfers occur.