British Columbia Fishing Blog

Chilliwack Vedder River Cleanup Society has finalized this year’s river clean-up dates with the City of Chilliwack and Fraser Valley Regional District. They are:

• April 20th at the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve
• July 20th at the Great blue Heron Nature Reserve
• September 29th at the Chilliwack Fish and Games Club

This will be the twelfth year since we started the group. In 2012, participants racked up 2,464 volunteer hours, collecting 5.72 metric tonnes of garbage from the Chilliwack River. This shows the importance of having these clean-ups. Not only are we maintaining the Chilliwack River valley so it is a pristine recreational corridor for all to enjoy, we are also minimizing garbage from being washed into the Pacific Ocean. Please support these three clean-ups once again in 2013.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to be part of a rather fun, or dirty, project on the Alouette River. Students from BCIT were learning the process of collecting chum salmon eggs and milt for the Seymour Salmon Hatchery, and I was invited to document it.

As mentioned in an earlier article, 2012′s Fraser River chum salmon run has been better than average so far. 3 to 3.5 million fish are estimated to make their way into the system by the end of the year. Just the Alouette River alone can see up to 250,000 spawning fish returning. I was blown away by the amount of fish that have reached the counting fence at the hatchery.

Each year, Seymour Salmon Hatchery collects eggs and milt from the Alouette River to boost Seymour River’s chum salmon stock. The run has been poor for many usual reasons, including the existing dam, urbanization and poaching. By transplanting more fish, the hope is to rebuild this run to possibly what it once was.

Here are some photographs. Stay tuned for the video feature!

This past weekend, we decided to put our fishing rods down and attended a very worthy local event in Maple Ridge. On Sunday, at Kanaka Creek, volunteers from Kanaka Education and Environmental Partnership Society (K.E.E.P.S.) displayed salmon that are currently returning to this system at the fish counting fence.

Kanaka Creek is a small river system. Unlike larger systems such as the Chilliwack River, it only sees the return of several hundreds to thousands of salmon each year. Meanders through a rapidly developing part of Metro Vancouver, it faces many challenges, including pollution, river discharge fluctuation and poaching. Collectively, these challenges can impact the fragile salmon population if actions are not taken.

K.E.E.P.S. is an active stewardship group that ensures the survival of this stream and its inhabitants. By ongoing work at the Bell-Irving Hatchery, habitat enhancement, river patrol and various outreach programs, it has been responsible for the return of these fish each year.

While we were at the event, visitors also received an extra treat when a black bear decided to make a surprising appearance. I managed to capture the last portion of its visit on video.

The annual BC Family Fishing Weekend took place this past weekend. Residents and visitors of British Columbia were invited to participate in recreational fishing without the need of purchasing a licence. As if it’s BC’s tradition, it rained throughout the entire weekend! Despite of the gloomy weather, it definitely did not stop people from wanting to wet a line.

During this annual festival, community events take part across the province, where experienced anglers volunteer their time to pass on the passion to newcomers. In the Lower Mainland, four popular events are usually well attended. They are BC Federation of Drift Fishers‘ Lafarge Lake Family Fishing Day, Fraser Valley Trout Hatchery’s open house, Greg Clark Memorial Family Fishing Derby and Seymour Salmonid Society’s Family Fishing Day.

This year, I dropped by Lafarge Lake to see BCFDF’s event and was surprised by how popular this event was. The rain gradually became heavier as the morning went by yet the crowd continued to grow. The organizer, Cam Aronetz, who has put on this event since BC Family Fishing Weekend was formed, sets up a special net pen where hundreds of rainbow trout are held so kids have a better chance of catching one.

We attended Seymour Salmonid Society’s family fishing day at Rice Lake as an exhibitor as usual on Sunday. This is an event that we have been involved since it was established in 2002 and it has been a pleasure to watch its growth in the past decade. Many of our website visitors came by and had a chat with us, so we thank you for all the support!

While we did not make it to Greg Clark’s Memorial Family Fishing Derby this year, I have been told by Fraser Valley Salmon Society that they had record attendance, with over 900 registered derby participants!

This year, I have the honour to become a board member of the Family Fishing Weekend Society and I look forward to offer my skills on web marketing to make these events more successful in future years.

Here are some photographs from the weekend.

Last Saturday we hosted the 8th annual Fish for the Future in Steveston. This is an yearly event that we host to give something back to the community by encouraging families to take up fishing and bringing more awareness to the precious Fraser River ecosystem.

The weather co-operated. Out of all the events that we’ve attended this year, it was finally sunny for once! We estimated the attendance to be around 400 to 500 people. 150 juvenile saltwater fishing licences were issued. Almost every kid caught at least one fish. The most abundant species caught was sculpin, while some peamouth chub and northern pikeminnow were also caught. One very large northern pikeminnow was caught by a little girl near the start of the event while a cutthroat trout was caught near the end.

Many thanks to our volunteers for working so hard to make this possible. We also appreciate the BC Family Fishing Weekend Society, City of Richmond, Seymour Salmonid Society, OWL, Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC and Fisheries & Oceans Canada for their support once again.

Next year’s event will be on July 9th, we hope to see you there! This year’s photographs can be seen on this page.