Walleyes for today and tomorrow thanks to UWC
BY SCOTT HADDOW
Wild Northerner staff
Rolly Frappier saw an opportunity to make progress on a conservation effort slipping away, so he spoke up. Loudly.
It was 2000 and Frappier was watching members from two local outdoors clubs and members of the MNR walk away from each other, bitter, over details of walleye stocking programs in the Greater Sudbury and surrounding regions.
“It was a bad meeting and as they walked away, I said ‘we have to work together or it isn’t going to work,’” Frappier said. “I don’t know if they heard me the first time because they kept walking, so I said it a lot louder the second time. They heard me. Everyone agreed. That was when it began and things started to change. We realized people had to come together to have a stronger presence with the MNR. Soon after, we created the United Walleye Clubs that brought everyone together, and instead of resisting each other, we worked together. It helped the partnership with the MNR and now, all the clubs and even supporting clubs, have an excellent reputation with the MNR. It made a difference to not walk away.”
Prior to the formation of the UWC, each fish and game association or club, had their own stocking programs and dealt with the government in their own way. It didn’t foster positive growth as clubs needed more resources. The answer, was, all along, right beside them in the form of other clubs doing the same work. Slowly, but surely, more and more clubs began sharing knowledge and building mutual trust. In 2001, it got to the point where every club was on the same page, with the same goal and the same drive, and the UWC was established. It has now grown to include 43 partner clubs and they stock lakes from Mattagami First Nation lands in the North to Parry Sound to New Liskeard and the Spanish River region down to the French River area and everywhere in-between. It created a single link to the MNR for all of the clubs and made sharing and gathering information easier and more effective. The UWC has stocked millions and millions of walleye fry across Northern Ontario since becoming a reality. In 2015, they had nearly nine million eggs in hatcheries across the region.
Frappier is the president of the UWC.