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[firstlight]

Love the old photo of the bar fisher.
That was sure some stove he had.
Cant help but notice the Dam Quick reel.
I used to ogle my neighbours when he came home from bar fishing.

[Woody Debris]

All the streams you mention are or were stocked with salmon and steelhead.  In the past plus others like Cogburn and Big silver on the east side of Harrison Lake and Weaver Creek. Most didn't produce all that many fish neither were they fished much. Cogburn and Big Silver are a long way to go particularly in late fall and winter. Many are rather short & don't offer a whole lot of space for more anglers. Norrish has it's own Federal facility and steelhead were stocked there in the 90s. It never produced much of a return. It also has a very short section of fishable water. Then there is a canyon and impassable waterfalls.

 Raising and Transporting the fish is expensive. The Little Cambell has a community hatchery (https://www.sfgc.info/hatchery), the returns are not shabby as does the Nicomekl, Serpentine (Tynehead) , Kanaka Creek, South Alouette River (Allco) so there are quite a number and you can find how many fish are stocked by those hatcheries. Stocking is all controlled by DFO and/or FFSBC & F&H BC. Coho, steelhead and chinook are tightly controlled and mostly raised in Federal or Provincial hatcheries until close to release and moved to the community site. When I was involved in what is now Allco, a lot more fish were raised and released on site including cutthroat & coho. Much of the reduction was due to huge decline in returns (ie -500%). In a lot of years hatchery returns are about 1 5th of what they were in the first 10 years or so of wide scale hatchery production. That's one of the factors that have pushed managing biologists to rely more on wild fish production.

It all sounds nice, we'll dump a lot fish into a number of streams and live in angling nirvana but who is going to pay for it? Don't say you license fees as that's not even close.

[dennisK]

  Don't say you license fees as that's not even close.

How do you know? I cannot locate any stats on revenue generated by license sales vs costs of hatcheries.

[Cyanescens]

Kanaka creek, Coquitlam river and the Little Campbell come to mind for hatchery salmon, specifically more springs, coho and chum. Although already stocked it would make sense to put more fish into a river that is close to a major population center. On the steelhead side of things Kanaka Creek, Nicomen Slough, Harrison River, Squamish, and the once-great Chehalis could use some fish. We could use Vedder River fish as broodstock for the salmon fisheries and some of the steelhead fisheries (hatchery steelhead for broodstock, no usage of wild fish). Specifically on the Kanaka, Nicomen, Little Campbell, and Coquitlam. However, for the Harrison, Chehalis, and Squamish, it would be better to start a broodstock program and then slowly shift it to only taking hatchery fish.

Using hatchery fish as broodstock is problematic. The genetics get weaker and weaker.

[Darko]

Using hatchery fish as broodstock is problematic. The genetics get weaker and weaker.

If lets say hatchery Coho are taken from the Chilliwack river,  as brood for another river and repeated each year with the new hatchery fish taken from the previous wild fish taken from the vedder would that not avoid that problem.

[clarki]

Using brood stock from one system, to augment stocks in another, for the purposes of enhancing recreational fishing is a non-starter as it reduces biodiversity.

IIRC, it's one of the reasons that the hatchery cutthroat program was curtailed in the Fraser Valley as broodstock from a couple of systems was being used to augment many other smaller systems.

Additionally, there was Lower Mainland hatchery that was having trouble getting sufficient wild steelhead broodstock and applied to the Province for permission to use broodstock from Vancouver Island. That was not approved.

[Chum Slayer]

Nobody is complaining about the red springs on the Vedder or on the Chehalis...

[stsfisher]

Its like it's the 1980's all over again.................. its all been done before guys. lots of information on the web why things did or didn't work well back when the answer was to hammer the systems with hatchery raised fish.
What we need is another EXPO year so we get 86 returns 

[wildmanyeah]

https://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/salmon-saumon/wsp-pss/policy-politique-eng.html#intro

[Woody Debris]

Outdoor Canada: To help recover B.C.’s Pacific salmon, we need to rethink hatcheries

https://www.outdoorcanada.ca/opinion-to-help-recover-b-c-s-pacific-salmon-we-need-to-rethink-hatcheries/

"...we need more investment in innovative ideas, such as the Okanagan Nation Alliance’s “hatchery in a box.” A shipping container converted into a small-scale, portable hatchery, it’s designed to boost a salmon run for one or two generations before it’s moved to another stream. First Nations across the province are now using the concept to recover culturally important salmon runs, although its biggest contribution may be in changing mindsets.

Namely, a hatchery in a box costs $100,000 to set up and thousands to run each year, while a traditional hatchery costs millions to build and millions more to run. “When you build a major facility, you’re invested in it,” says Howie Wright, the fisheries program manager for the Okanagan Nation Alliance. “You want to keep running it.” And science has shown that’s not in the best interest of salmon—or anglers."

[Wiseguy]

Love the old photo of the bar fisher.
That was sure some stove he had.
Cant help but notice the Dam Quick reel.
I used to ogle my neighbours when he came home from bar fishing.

I had one back in the day and wore it out. Recently I lucked out and bought another barely used one on FB Marketplace for 20 bucks!

[Woody Debris]

I've had a response to my enquiries this morning.

"In recent seasons the river would open for Rec. HM Coho retention when it opens for Chum retention.  However, given current historically low in-season abundance status of Fraser Chum returns (Ref. FN1150: Fraser Chum Update),  there are no plans this season to open Fraser mainstem for Chum.  It also looks like Coho encounters at Albion TF continue to be very low in recent days, including this past weekend."

They have done creel census studies on the Fraser Bar fishery in the past - i know I was quizzed a couple times and even had my catch examined so they should have some idea how many chums get caught by sports anglers if it was open.

[salmonrook]

The Little Cambell has a community hatchery (https://www.sfgc.info/hatchery), the returns are not shabby as does the Nicomekl, Serpentine (Tynehead) , Kanaka Creek, South Alouette River (Allco) so there are quite a number and you can find how many fish are stocked by those hatcheries.

The Little Campbell typically releases up to 45, 000 hatchery Chinook and close to 20, 000 Coho .
 We have decent returns and the wild fish outnumber the hatchery returns 4 to 1
We also did a steelhead release last year of approx. 5,000 steelhead, which were taken from wild broodstock from the river and raised by the Semi hatchery in the outdoor tanks after being fertilized and raised to smolt size by the FFSC in Abbotsford .

Coho, steelhead and chinook are tightly controlled and mostly raised in Federal or Provincial hatcheries until close to release and moved to the community site.

The little Campbell raises its own coho and chinook from wild broodstock under the direction of DFO . Being a community hatchery its self sustaining and does take some grant money but mostly relies on volunteers and donations for its budget every year

[iblly]

Ralph that picture of your wife’s grandfather sure looks like a Richmond bar to me but I can’t pinpoint which one ?

[Woody Debris]

it's Duncan, east of Fort Langley at the end of River Road.