I thought the reasoning for the complete summer closure was to protect Chinook and Sockeye stocks as they believed they had poor outmigrating survival conditions due to “the blob”. It was kind of funny to see the numbers as they came back and how wrong they were, Chinook numbers really weren’t as bad as they thought they would be and sockeye came back relatively healthy, healthy enough to warrant commercial fisheries once the 700k fish threshold was accounted for in the IFMP.
I hardly want to steer this to the latest and greatest racial debate but it seems like going after the recreational fisherman is the cheapest and easiest option when in reality commercial fishing does the most harm. Perhaps if the northern bands want to implement a positive strategy to rebuilding stocks at a time where all species are facing the most difficult conditions ever observed, they could lobby for a complete change to the way DFO handles fishery management be it their own fisheries, commercial and recreational. I personally would have absolutely no issue with leaving that river alone to recover as best as possible if other user groups similarly restrict their activities. Individually targeting a user group that has minimal impact and continuing business as normal seems extremely miscalculated as far as the big picture is concerned.
Also, I believe the pecking order as far as the courts and DFO is concerned is Conservation-Aboriginal-Commercial-Recreational