Derek Neary
Northern News Services

Kakisa Lake (Aug 11/00) - Some commercial fishers and band members in Kakisa are worried pickerel stocks have dropped in Kakisa Lake.

"The last couple of years the fish weren't coming as they were before," Ka'a'ge Tu First Nation Chief Lloyd Chicot said.

"There could be a whole bunch of reasons ... global warming, the weather's getting warmer."

The concern has warranted a pickerel study by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). In late June, band members Gabe Chicot and Jennifer Simba spent a dozen days setting different-sized nets and monitoring the number of pickerel they caught.

DFO technicians also did some work in the area. The data was forwarded to the DFO to be analyzed and compared to existing baseline data from the 1970s. The results are expected by spring.

There are four fishing crews from Kakisa involved in the commercial fishery, Gabe Chicot added. They also fish on nearby Tathlina Lake.

If the stocks are found to be declining and the fish are getting smaller physically, the band will be advised of the options to store the stocks, said George Low, fisheries management biologist with the DFO in Hay River.

Among the ways to address the problem would be closing the lake, dropping the quota or changing the mesh size, allowing smaller fish to escape.

"What you're aiming for is for at least some of those fish to spawn at least once before they're susceptible to the gear," Low said.

"Other fisheries have gone down to 3.5 (inches) and they've usually run into a problem ... maybe we have to go back to 4.5 (inches)."

Low said that air and water temperatures do seem to be on the rise, and that's more likely the source of the problem as opposed to resource development around Kakisa or even south of the border, he said. Nothing has been substantiated yet, he said.

Commercial fishing has been taking place on Kakisa Lake, which is fed by Tathlina Lake and Dogface Lake, since the 1960s, according to Lloyd Chicot.

Back then, the fishers used to come in from Hay River and other areas. The quota was later reduced to 20,000 kilograms.

"Basically they've been fishing that quota since 1968, so it's kind of surprising that all of a sudden this problem seems to be cropping up," Low said.

"We're not sure what the reason is. We're hopeful that it's not a serious problem. We're as concerned as the people at Kakisa."

Lloyd Chicot said the fishers in Kakisa are the ones primarily affected by the poor catches, but others periodically fish on the lakes as well.

"The agreement that we have with fisheries (in the early 1990s) is that these lakes are open to anybody in Canada ... but the guys here get first priority," Chicot explained.

"If there's any quota left then others can come in and fish."