Ice fishing enthusiasts know about the Pelican Lake Ice Fishing Derby that takes place every spring on the first weekend of March, this Saturday, March 2.
In the past, people would take their prize catch of the day to the measuring station to get their names and the size of their fish on the board.
However, for conservation purposes, the new rules are that anglers cannot have walleye over 21 ½ inches, or northern pike over 29 ½ inches. The reason is that these larger fish are the female egg-layers that keep the fish population healthy.
This new rule has created its share of challenges for ice fishing derby organizers – and so they will use the Fish Donkey App on smart phones to document the fish caught.
Healthy Lake Committee Chair, Trevor Maguire, said unfortunately this discriminates against those who do not use smart phones, and it is quite difficult to take a photo of a slippery fish on a bump board, and not lose your phone in water hole! However, there are ways around this and one way is to bring a friend to help with taking pictures and downloading information to the Fish Donkey App.
“Anyone of any age can fish in our derby on March 2nd, by paying a $60 entry fee,” explained Maguire. “But we always have a free youth component as well so if you want to just come and fish for free, we’ve moved that to March 9th.”
Youth fishing ages are 3 to 14 years old, scheduled for Saturday, March 9th.
“So, this has all brought on some little changes and we’re adapting to it. No one is super happy about it,” he adds. “But it’s what the rules are so it’s what we’re going to try and do.”
The benefits to the Fish Donkey App is that once you’re logged in, anglers can only enter fish when the derby officially starts. Once you’ve caught your fish, take a picture of it and yourself holding it (you have to match the name with the App user) and then video tape yourself putting the fish back in the water, then you are officially in the contest. Fish Donkey automatically puts your entries in order among other participants from longest to shortest so everyone can see instantly where they place in the standings for each species!
The most important benefit of using the App is that anglers stress these large egg-layers by holding them, spinning them around in a very small bucket of water, having multiple people handle them to measure them and then will be cast live. well, it’s been removed. The fish are caught, photographed and then returned to the water!
It’s important to note the reason for the change is that Conservation Manitoba wants to help protect our older spawning fish that make our Pelican Lake fishing fun!
For more information visit the Health Lake Website HERE!
Please listen to more with Trevor Maguire below!