In seeking to outline the requirements for healthy and productive freshwater ecosystems, we draw upon our collective experience in Canada and beyond. Recent changes to Canadian fisheries policies have motivated responses by the public and the scientific community (Reynolds et al. 2012; Cooke and Imhof 2012; de Kerchove et al. 2013, Hutchings and Post 2013), yet a broad contemporary scientific assessment of what is required to manage freshwater fisheries resources is lacking. A template of the core ecological concepts underlying sound fisheries policies, based on the best available science (Sullivan et al. 2006), will support policy and management decisions and the design of monitoring programs to evaluate the success of these actions.