Draconian Fisheries Closures in BC
 

Read it and weep:

http://seawestnews.com/sweeping-clos...ishing-season/

https://www.timescolonist.com/news/l...ing-1.23793196

https://i.imgur.com/jRSbubT.jpg

Thanks for posting Nog.

Going to be a tough season for the guides. I know quite a few in Campbell River and the last few years have been a rough go. My cousin pulled the plug today after guiding every year for the last 27 mostly in CR. He figures there’s more money to be made building fences and raking leaves with the way things have been going. Pretty sad...

How is this Draconian and what actions would you suggest to protect the Spring stocks?

Reminds me of when England joined the EU, then the English were forced to destroy their fishing boats and go on welfare so that the other EU nations could fish their waters...

The resource's of the country of Canada have been sold to the United Abominations to be centrally controlled, collected and distributed by who they appoint, those are not Canada's resource's any longer in the eye's of those who have sold us out.

Oil, fish, lumber,and soon to be wheat, water, uranium,potash,cattle and all of Canada's other resource's, the time to fight back is yesterday.

Agenda 21 and 2030 are very real and will effect every Canadian in many very negative ways.

That really is the question, isn't it. No matter what changes are made, there are going to be unhappy people.

Pulling the endless amount of nets out of the rivers would be a start. At the very least that should be done if there are conservation concerns.

AO Fishing Sponsors
 

Quite a devastating change of rules. It would be interesting for the AO Sponsors on the Coast to weigh in how it affects their operations.

Got to be a big hit to some. Many of the fishermen I have met out there that are on a guided package are concerned on how many pounds of fish they take home. Especially the non-resident alien fishermen.

We are looking at doing a trip out there somewhere this year, and probably will regardless of retention amounts. How much fish can two people eat LOL???

Are the Commercial quotas at risk as well?

Truth.

First: DFO incompetence, corruption & mismanagement created the problem. There is zero question of that.

Second: The BS regarding the "starving" / "threatened" orcas is just that - BS. They are fluctuating within the ranges of their recognized population numbers since we started recording them in the '40's. It is a convenient excuse.

Third: Although the diminutive troll fleet has had it's share of the pie drastically reduced over time (last year appx 10% of the sports catch) and the recreational sector has taken many hits regarding slot limits and area closures, the FN's have been granted ever increasing openings on these same stocks. To the point that last season, they were afforded more openings on threatened or endangered classified runs than ever historically.

Fourth: DFO just announced a new component of their ministry titled "Reconciliation and Partnerships (R&P) Branch" complete with an RDG and support staff. You can likely guess where that is headed, but if in doubt, pm me & I will send you the background letter from DFO.

Fifth: ZERO consideration to the vast economic impacts coastwide of these measures. Guides. Lodges, in fact entire Communities are being paced at risk by these ill advised actions.

How much more should I go into the description of "draconian" do you require to get it?

The actions that are required are not Rocket Science. Habitat has to be improved on a huge scale. Predation by seals & sea lions HAS to be addressed (currently taking ~ 45 % of the annual production of Chinook annually), and stock enhancement has to be ramped up demonstrably.

Instead, DFO has slashed habitat programs, turned a complete blind eye to predation issues and continue on with blanket protection of the worst offenders, and slashed hatchery budgets to the bone.

Of course all of those efforts require funding & dedication. Something both DFO, and their political masters have little intestinal fortitude in addressing. FAR easier to shut down the fisheries (for some) and say "Hey Look, We're are doing something" - when in fact they are not.

Sadly,
Nog

The saddest part is now all that is going to happen for the sport fishermen that can no longer retain salmon is there will be a lot more dock sales and poaching.. 1 group will prosper selling fish to everyone.

The seals will be happy at least.

Cull seals and sea lions, and while you're at it the orcas.

Stopping netting and fishing of spawning salmon on the rivers would make a hell of a lot bigger difference than killing seals sea lions and orca.

There used to be lots of small business owner commercial fishermen and then big business started buying licences and controlling catch rate, timing and sales. Patterson group is one of them.

My question is the salmon quota and fishery as stupid a process as halibut wherein the government gave free quotas out to individuals and then most of them stopped fishing and just sold or leased there quota?

On a cost benefit analysis where is the value to the economy? Sport fishing or commercial fishing? Does it make more sense to keep the sport fishing going flat and curtail commercial guys? How impacted are Commercial fishermen?

I think the quota system commercial to sport fishing is rigged in favour of big business padding politicians pockets with stronger lobbying as the sport fishing lobby in Canada is weak...weak...weak compared to the US.

I see commercial is starting late. As runs are genetically distinct over periods of time putting massive pressure at the end will wipe out late running chinooks.

How about stopping all commercial harvest in oceans and rivers?

Close but not quite. Currently seals & sea lions consume around 45 - 50 % of all the chinook and coho that smolt from the Fraser River. HUGE impact. We'll simply take his killer whale comment for what it was worth - as in nada.

On the other hand, around 75 K or so chinook spawners are killed by FN's in the same river each year, with Fishless Ocean's blessing. Translates to one hell of a lot of potential smolts the following year.

But nope, let's curtail everyone one else, and tuck our heads firmly up our backsides instead... :scared0015:

Nog

BC poaching scam won’t stop anytime soon.
 

The most stupid thing the government did was making licences online instead of purchasing one..

My buddy on the coast said the scam / poaching explosion by some BC Residents happens as follows.

Purchase your license online. Print out. Photo copy a bunch of copies.

Go fishing. Catch your 2 Chinook. Record on your license.

Get home after not being checked. Rip up license and take a fresh one with you next time.

Anytime you get checked...that is your new starting number in case DFO recorded the info.

The result. Instead of keeping only 30 Chinook in a year the number is unlimited.

This 10 limit number doesn’t hurt them at all. Same scam works.

The lack of rentention hurts any other Canadians flying to the coast to enjoy our Federal waters.

Well, maybe the orca comment was overkill but once all those additional salmon spawners make it upstream the habitat for eggs, alevin, parr, and smolts is critical for the percentage getting back to the ocean the next year.

Is there a study that shows seals and sea lions kill that many salmon?

Unless there is a dam or migration impediment I didn’t think they were that big a deal. A grown sea lion catch catch a healthy Chinook in the ocean unless stuck on a fishing line.

Thank you Nog,
I agree on almost all points, my originally asked question was legitimate and was not meant to punk you.

I have watched DFO treat BC's anadromous fish stock like trash for close to 40 years.

The nets and shore fishers stop eggs from being deposited. The salmon have no chance to reproduce. Many have learned that the seals and sea lions are nothing more than an agenda, a distraction from other events. Some haven't.

There are multiple studies that confirm this.

Seals consume approximately 40% of juvenile chinook and 47 % of the coho production in the Georgia Strait every year.

https://marinesurvivalproject.com/re...ist/predation/

Seals consume 6 times the catch by commercial and recreational fishermen.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/...3#.W0ZQIMInbcs

There is no single cause of the decline in Chinook stock, a comprehensive plan to protect our salmon stocks must include the discussion of the control of the seal population.

Harbor Seal diet in northern Puget Sound: implications for the recovery of depressed fish stock.
M. Lance, Monique & Chang, WY & Jeffries, Steven & Pearson, Scott & Acevedo-Gutierrez, Alejandro. (2012). Harbor seal diet in northern Puget Sound: Implications for the recovery of depressed fish stocks. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 464. 257-271. 10.3354/meps09880.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14984-8

"As more protected species respond positively to recovery efforts, managers should attempt to evaluate tradeoffs between these recovery efforts and the unintended ecosystem consequences of predation and competition on other protected species."

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/...3#.W0ZQIMInbcs

More:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technolo..._lsa=e32e-7e5d

https://www.psf.ca/sites/default/fil...16_Report_.pdf

https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news...ines/97162580/

https://www.researchgate.net/scienti...vl-SWGXITX_uwA

https://www.eopugetsound.org/magazin...G-P5nL9TQhQ1ks

https://www.nature.com/articles/s415...CG3oMJs0SfUVEI

https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi...&#.XLdc0dh7nct

Perhaps the very best way to understand this issue to to watch the presentation by Dr. Carl Walters. It is a bit long, but hits on every point. Something the naysayers here should really invest a moment or two in order to get their minds wrapped around the facts, instead of maintaining their emotion based stances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FBrBK_FRBk

Nog

Props to you. You provide the facts!

Thanks Nog.

Always good to get the low down that's occuring with in Canada. Sharing is a good thing.

👍

It does seem kinda crazy to have a relatively few guys with commercial licences getting 90% of the total allowable catch compared to sport fishermen.

It really doesn't matter if a fish gets taken in a net in a river or by a west coast
troller. Either way it's not going to spawn. By taking them in river you can at least target a specific run. Go watch the commercial guys toss back not targeted species and see how many floaters there are. :thinking-006:

Simply does not occur in the case of Chinook (Springs).
The recreational sector has, for years, been granted exponentially more of the TAC than the two troll groups involved.
There are no seine fisheries for this species beyond the odd terminal one (aka limited Port Alberni) and gillnets have been largely taken out of the picture except for FN use (both FSC and race based commercial).

The harvest by all commercial sectors last season was WELL below 80,000.
The harvest by the recreational sector was in excess of 200,000.

Simply Facts..
Nog

Looks like your numbers are off a little.
https://www-ops2.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/F....cfm?year=2018
These numbers are landed. It doesn't take into account all the chinook (plus steelhead) that get taken in the sockeye fisheries and then tossed back to feed the crabs. Those ones "never happened".......:thinking-006:

Cool. Thanks for the info. I can see them eating the juveniles.

Not by any real margin. Recreational is still more than double the total commercial landings last season.

Nor does the 230,000 plus landed by the recreational sector take into account the number of springs released while searching for a larger one. That, when realizing the recognized mortality rate for that practice is slightly better than ten percent, means a great many more fell victim to the rod.

This should not be, and is not a debate of who took what. It is quite obvious where that answer lies. This should be about rebuilding trust between all sectors. DFO has gotten so damn used to the divide and conquer strategy, they know no other way.

I suggest presenting a United Front of ALL fishing sectors would not only scare the absolute crap out of them, but likely carry the day. And I, among many, refuse to give up the fight to make this happen.

Have a great day!
Nog

Also the herring fishery takes away the Chinook's food, sends roe to Japan and the rest is made into meal for the fish farms out there which kill vast areas of sea floor with poop and medications, and infest the area with sea lice so dense they kill smolts returning from the rivers. The salmon have very little chance of competing with DFO. I was planning on fishing out of French Creek or Sooke this year but may head east instead. Too bad, I love it out there but C&R is just bad practice and no fun.