The Great Fish Debate

Now there's some Walleye!!  I think...

So I somewhat correctly identified these fish upon my arrival at Hamilton House B&B, but the debate is still raging on.  Because these guys look so much like Lancaster (or Yellow) Perch to me, I figured that the Walleye was in the same family.  Apparently not...Perch are Perch and Walleye are Pickeral...or are they??

Now keep in mind that I come from the great Manson fishing family.  I have a certain reputation to uphold, but I really only know St. Lawrence fishing - Lancaster Perch, Pike and the occasional Small-Mouth (or was it Large-Mouth?) Bass.  We only really ever jigged, maybe sometimes using a lure for the bass.  Part of my becoming an Albertan will be to take up fishing out here again, and learn what's going on in Cold Lake, as well as the numerous surrounding lakes stretching right into Saskatchewan.

I have one of these in my tackle box!!  Not that big tho...

Upon further discussion, there aren't Pickeral in the lake itself, but rather in the adjoining rivers.  And these aren't the Pickeral as we know them from back home (although I never did meet a Pickeral in all of my fishing travels), but rather the Sauger, a sub-species of Pickeral.  Walleye in the lake remain Walleye, and there is also an ample supply of Pike, but the eatin' kind!!  Because the lake is so cold and the Pike so predatory, they grow to quite the size and the meat on them isn't mealy like back home.  So them there's people up here filet 'em and eat 'em like we do Perch.  The meat is fresh and orange in colour.

But the real story about the fish in Cold Lake are the lake trout: some can easily be 25lbs!!  They say they eat them up to about 13lbs here, after that they have too much fat on them and they get too oily to eat.  Interesting.  And they jig for them too, at certain times of year, until such a time as they have to turn to trolling, using downriggers.  All of this will be new to me!!

The biggest lake trout ever caught in Cold Lake...by a woman!!

Disclaimer: since I've had so many discerning opinions about what is a Walleye and what isn't, none of what I've written here should really be trusted...