'Administrative oversight' removes Yukon lakes from fishing permits

Yukon conservation officers are apologizing after an "administrative oversight" led them to mistakenly shut down some winter fishing operations.

"It just had no sense to me," said Bert Provencher, who bought a licence and set lines for burbot (or loche) on his usual fishing lakes, only to be confrontedby an officer who told himthe lakes were off-limits.

"He told me that the set line fishing is now closed for this part of the Yukon," Provencher said. "I told him to just keep the licence."

Provenchermade some inquiries, and officials at Environment Yukon soon realized they made a mistake.

"This past winter we updated some of the conditions that were affixed to the burbot licences," said conservation officer Kris Gustafson."We inadvertently eliminated a couple of the lakes."

Gustafson said the error has been fixed, and any burbot licences have reverted to the original conditions.

"We certainly apologize," he said.

Provenchersays he'll be going out again this weekend.

"Yeah, this is very good news for me. I will set my line at the cabin which is already on the lake."