Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing-related Issues & News => Topic started by: troutbreath on March 17, 2012, 09:42:55 AM
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Threat of increased restrictions on chinook fishing loom over industry
By Judith Lavoie, Victoria Times ColonistMarch 17, 2012
The recreational fishing industry in the Victoria area is reeling after being told Fisheries and Oceans Canada is considering imposing restrictions on the summer chinook salmon fishery in Juan de Fuca Strait.
Members of the Victoria/ South Island Sport Fishing Advisory Board and industry representatives who took part in a conference call with Fisheries and Oceans Friday, say plans to further restrict or even consider closing the chinook fishery in the peak season of June, July and August could cause the collapse of the southern Vancouver Island sports fishing industry.
"Our backs are against the wall. Any more cuts will be the death of our fishery," said Martin Paish, general manager of Pedder Bay RV Resort and Marina in Victoria.
The value of the chinook fishery in the areas from the mouth of the Fraser River, through Sidney to Jordan River is mil-lions of dollars, said Christopher Bos, Sport Fishing Advisory Board Victoria chairman.
"The moment they start messing with the economic driver to the point that opportunity and expectation [of catching fish] are gone, they will destroy that economic driving force," he said.
The spinoff effect would include fishing lodges, about 50 fishing charter operations, marinas, campgrounds, tackle shops and hotels, Paish said.
"It would have a huge impact on Sooke and Metchosin. The sports fishery drives tourism in this area."
No one from Fisheries and Oceans was available to comment Friday, but Tom Cole, assistant chairman of the advisory board, said Fisheries and Oceans representatives will be at a meeting to be held on Wednesday in Langford.
The issue revolves around some Fraser River chinook stocks with poor returns and those fish turn up in Juan de Fuca Strait in the summer at the same time as abundant stocks.
Two years ago, the recreational fishery, which takes only a fraction of the threatened stocks, agreed to restrictions in an effort to conserve those stocks, Paish said. The rules now allow recreational fishers to take two chinook a day in the summer, with varying size constraints.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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'Draconian' chinook cuts loom for anglers
Restrictions raise fears for future of southern Island sports fishing
Fishermen in Greater Victoria are reeling after being told the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is looking at "draconian" restrictions on the summer chinook salmon fishery in Juan de Fuca Strait.
Members of the Victoria-South Island Sport Fishing Advisory Board and industry representatives, who took part in a conference call with DFO Friday, say plans to further restrict or even close the chinook fishery in the peak season of June, July and August could cause the collapse of the southern Vancouver Island sports fishing industry.
http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/Draconian+chinook+cuts+loom+anglers/6318589/story.html
SFAB meeting Mar 21 7pm at Sheraton, Victoria.
DFO will be looking to see how many show! Be there if you can...
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of course the fraser native food fishery will be restricted,no chance. the nets start in april at yale.me thinks.
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Ironic... I was just thinking today that chinook would be the next species of concern... not sure why I was thinking this.
I can totally see DFO cutting limits to 1 per day. To be honest, tourists who are flying in from out of town dont need to take ~75 pounds of chinook salmon home each trip, having a 1 fish per day limit like we do for chinook on most LML rivers is fair. But I can see why the lodges would be pissed off, as people who spend upwards of 5 grand for a couple days definitely want to take home their moneys worth. The way it goes, I guess... greed trumps need, right? :-\
It comes at a funny time too, this proposal from DFO... From a pipeline perspective, no sport fishing industry = no loss of revenue for the sport fishing industry when its destroyed by a spill, because the places cant stay open without chinook retention!
Something is fishy...
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This comes at a time when there are record runs of chinook along the outer coast heading to American rivers. Our American cousins seem to be looking after things better than the politicians directing DFO.
If the big Springers need help I am all for it but lets get serious about identifying and fixing their problems. Don't just cut off a minor portion of the harvest and hope for a miracle recovery.
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More "Spin" from The Dino: http://www.timescolonist.com/Chinook+fishery+woes+being+spread+around+says/6327429/story.html
At least they finally admitted which Faction is contributing the most to the decline of the stocks in peril...
A meeting between DFO and southern Vancouver Island sports fishers will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Four Points Sheraton in Langford.
Not my back yard, but I am making every attempt to be there!
Nog
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Sports fishers reject restrictions on chinook
Models used to justify cuts derided as 'jiggery-pokery'
By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist March 23, 2012 Comment 6 •Story•Photos ( 1 )
A chinook salmon, along with a school of shad, pass through the viewing room at McNary Lock and Dam on the Columbia River, June 7, 2005 near Umatilla, Oregon. Fishermen in B.C. are worried about "draconian" restrictions on fishing for chinook salmon.Photograph by: Jeff T. Green , Getty ImagesAngry anglers gave Fisheries and Oceans representatives a rough ride Wednesday with raucous objections to any cuts to the summer chinook fishery in Juan de Fuca Strait.
About 400 people crowded into the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Langford to tell DFO they have already taken enough cuts and any further restrictions would cause the collapse of the southern Vancouver Island sports fishery.
A motion passed unanimously that the "Victoria Sports Fishing Advisory Board Committee will not agree to, or accept, any further restrictions on the recreational chinook fishery."
Fishers want DFO to show that it has met its own salmon allocation policy and that a recovery plan is in place that includes habitat restoration, sufficient water for the fish and a hatchery enhancement program.
Another motion demanded that DFO have a third-party review of stock assessment and harvest data.
Some figures being used to justify restrictions are more than a decade old and others are based on best-guesses, said Christopher Bos, chairman of the Victoria Sports Fishing Advisory Board Committee.
"If you put garbage into the model, you're going to get garbage out," Bos said. "It's all jiggery-pokery."
A third motion called for all DFO staff to be fired immediately.
Les Jantz, DFO area chief of resource management for the B.C. Interior, said the meeting was very emotional.
"To a lot of people, this is near and dear to their heart, and they feel as if they have been singled out as the sole group to take action, which is not the case," Jantz said.
DFO staff would have liked to have met again with committee members, but that was rejected, Jantz said.
"That is unfortunate, because I think there are some things we could work with," he said. "The bottom line is they say they won't take any more action to protect these stocks."
At the heart of the controversy are Fraser River chinook runs that are not doing well. Returns this year are expected to be extremely low and all sectors are being told to expect restrictions in an effort to get more fish back to the spawning grounds.
The chinook fishery in Juan de Fuca Strait catches mixed stocks, with some fish from abundant runs and others from the depleted runs.
DFO will come up with a plan in the next month after meeting with all sectors.
Jantz also met with First Nations from Vancouver Island and the mainland in Victoria on Thursday.
"First Nations are concerned about these stocks because they rely heavily on them for food fisheries," Jantz said. "I expect they will come back with some recommendations on how to conserve these fish."
If the stocks are not rebuilt now, they will not be there in the future, Jantz said.
Conservation and First Nations have priority in fisheries.
Ernie Crey, fisheries adviser to Sto: lo Tribal Council, said First Nations have already reduced their catch and are prepared to do more.
"It's time for sports fishery groups to join with us in saving these precious fish," he said.
jlavoie@timescolonist.com
Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/Sports+fishers+reject+restrictions+chinook/6348560/story.html#ixzz1q4VsvNyv
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Pretty soon we will be fighting over the last chinook. So sad.
Close this fishery to all user groups - another David Anderson is needed here and fast.
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Dave, in this one I agree, seems that we need to step back and take a breather. Did anyone forcast the colapse of the cod fishery, or near colapse of the herring fisheries. Pretty soon we will be pointing fingers at each other when there gone.
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maybe if the commercial and native fisheries contibuted like we do as hatchery volunteers , fund raisers , and put a little more back into the mix, things might work out a little better in the long run . blaming the sport fishery for the problem when i am pretty sure we provide the most revenue for the dfo , and probably dont even catch 1/4 of the total havest in a year wtf. I love eating salmon but probably am only keeping 1-2 springs a year and release tons. and the lodges that think they are going to loose money , get a grip i would still pay top dollar to have an unforgettable expierence like you can get in bc even if it was catch and release. lots of world renouned lodges have very strict restrictions. sorry for the rant but getting a little pissed at the dfo mismanagement of our life blood salmon runs . almost better to have wwf run our fisheries eventhough you probably would not even be able to keep a dogfish !!!! ???
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Call me naive (or worse) but I believe if Fraser River FN saw a marine and in river closure to sports fishing for these stocks of early run chinook, they also would not fish.
Many up river FN leaders have requested this closure because they see the final numbers of spawners in their territorial rivers; for lower Fraser bands to defy a closure and fish on these stocks when they would be the only harvesters would be considered disrespectful and for the slowly evolving single voice of Fraser River bands, absolutely not acceptable.
Again, a total closure is what is necessary to even have a hope of rebuilding these stocks.
My .02
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How is this going to affect us for fishing springs in the Vedder? What i read into this is that we will be affected and either not allowed to retain and it becomes a catch and release fishery or our limit will be cut. The latter is ok with me because i hooked and landed many last year and only bonked two.
Living on the island its nice to go to the mainland and fish the Vedder with my sons, i have had some of the best and memorable times of my life fishing the Vedder. I would like to make a suggestion here. I personally see a steady stream of Americans fishers heading up to the west coast to fish little bank, big bank etc while the fish are migrating. I think it would be a huge step in conservation shutting the spring fishery down to our Americans friends. Hundreds of American fishers catching limits of chinook and taking them home is a large contributing factor to our decline in the stocks. If the fishery was shut down to our friends across the water there would be that many more fish for the rivers or to go around for us. The west coast of Vancouver island has more American boats fishing in the summer than Canadian boats. I spend alot of time up of the west coast and have seen this fishery pushed to the max. I don't mind taking a cut and doing my part but i think DFO has to take a serious look at the fish that are being caught and taken back to the USA..
Lets all do our part for conservation but before shutting the fishery down to Canadians lets stop the bombardment of American boats to the west coast of the island killing limits and shut it down to them first. DFO also needs to take a serious look at the sports fishing lodges on our coast. The sports fishing guides are good at what they do and clients always seem to take home their limits. Why not cut everyones limit in half the commercial sector, sports fishers including the big lodges as well as FN fishers. I wonder just how many lodges we have on the coast and the number of fish killed at them?
Just my humble opinion
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Can somebody help with defining exactly which 'summer' runs are in trouble. I know the early Upper Fraser springers have been in trouble for some years. They go far and penetrate into many small streams where the runs have become simply too small to be viable on an individual basis. I think these are considered spring fish.
In recent years the runs up the Fraser in summer have been pretty good. I think these are primarily Thompson/Shushwap fish. Are these considered summer or late summer or even fall fish?
What runs are 'summer fish'?
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most of the fish taken on the banks off uclulet and north are columbia river fish ,hatchery produced,so no need to restrict americans coming to catch american produced fish.
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I guess we can hang up the rods for the sping on Fraser this year for the sake of the fish. Perhaps go fish the Columbia & tributaries for their hatchery spring.
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Can somebody help with defining exactly which runs are in trouble. I know the early Upper Fraser springers have been in trouble for some years. They go far and penetrate into many small streams where the runs have become simply too small to be viable on an individual basis. I think these are considered spring fish.
In recent years the runs up the Fraser in summer have been pretty good. I think these are primarily Thompson/Shushwap fish. Are these considered summer or late summer or even fall fish?
What runs are 'summer fish'?
Wish I knew more about these early fish but I know of stocks (upper Chilcotin near Chezacut, Elkin Creek, Blackwater and tribs, Morkill, Torpy, McGregor, etc) that spawn at the end of July /early August; that means they were in the lower Fraser up to 6 weeks earlier. Truth is these stocks have not been given the conservation status they need and spawning ground data is limited.
I agree the South Thompson stocks that migrate through the lower Fraser in the summer are doing surprisingly well and a respected fishery scientist once suggested it was these fish. along with coastal BC hatchery stocks and Columbia River chinooks that kept our resident Orca population fed and in BC waters..
Shuswapsteve can address this far better than I.
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I can remember fishing springs in Spius Creek (a tributary of the Nicola river) over 30 years ago and catching quite a few in the early spring, like in May. I heard that last year only about 8 fish from the Spius creek run returned to the hatchery. So the springs on that flow are in big trouble.
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Wish I knew more about these early fish but I know of stocks (upper Chilcotin near Chezacut, Elkin Creek, Blackwater and tribs, Morkill, Torpy, McGregor, etc) that spawn at the end of July /early August; that means they were in the lower Fraser up to 6 weeks earlier. Truth is these stocks have not been given the conservation status they need and spawning ground data is limited.
I agree the South Thompson stocks that migrate through the lower Fraser in the summer are doing surprisingly well and a respected fishery scientist once suggested it was these fish. along with coastal BC hatchery stocks and Columbia River chinooks that kept our resident Orca population fed and in BC waters..
Shuswapsteve can address this far better than I.
The Upper Fraser 5 sub 2 (rear in freshwater for 2 winters and return as 5 year olds) are not doing well. South Thompson stocks (primarily ocean type 4 sub 1s) are doing much better. The Fraser River 4 sub 2s stocks are a real concern (I believe these are the earlier timed Chinook that go to places like the Nicola, Deadman, Coldwater, Bonaparte and Spius). Not sure about what Chinook stocks feed Orcas, but your source is likely a good one knowing that you likely have good sources.
Stock assessment enumeration for Chinook in the BC Interior is primarily done by aerial surveys (Area Under the Curve; peak live count with expansion factor) with more intensive work (mark-recapture) done on systems like the Lower Shuswap, Nicola and Chilko (Sentinel funded) and electronic counters at the Deadman and Bonaparte. Coded wire tags are put on hatchery fish from the Nicola and the Lower Shuswap. Spawning ground data is limited because these guys that do this work have a lot of area to cover with limited funds which is not likely going to get any better after March 28th. Sockeye stock assessment help out CH/CO (Chinook/Coho) stock assessment personnel by trying to count Chinook in areas they are not able to cover. These other areas that CH/CO cannot get to are routinely covered by Sockeye field staff while doing Sockeye enumeration. CH/CO staff help Sockeye staff out by returning the favour in areas they are not able to count Sockeye, but it is part of the CH/CO aerial survey schedule.
I hope this helps.
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Did someone just turn the light bulb on or has everyone been living in a time warp? One could see the demise of Fraser chinook runs coming 10 years ago. Over fishing by all sectors and the unwillingness to reduce bag limits has compounded the problem. Even as these runs are on their last leg, no one is willing to give an inch. Continue harvesting these stocks and the problem will take care of itself. Set nets, drift nets , flossing, commercial, lodges, sport fishing and now the removal of HABITAT from the fishery act. It is unfortunate that it has come to this point. As Dave said, it is time for another "David Anderson" to step up to the plate.
Fixing the problem is a long term commitment by all user groups to get more fish on the spawning grounds. Even if this was accomplished, it may not be enough to restore viable stocks due to global warming and reduced survival rates. Spring runs on the west coast have been healthy. These fish are produced by American hatcheries with money from the mitigation of hydro dams. No such luck in Canada with reduced budgets and production cuts of hatchery fish. Additional funding would be great, however it is being diverted to the aquaculture
industry. What does that say about the commitment of our government to protect wild stocks?
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Shuswapsteve: Thanks for the great summary of chinook run information. I am always interested in such information and find it very hard to locate even though I know it is probably out there.
Buck: You are correct about causes and light bulbs but most of us are bystanders and hope the 'authorities' are looking after the fisheries because individually we see only a small piece of the puzzle, even for those of us with an interest.
As an example of pieces to the puzzle, I found the following on another site:
In the 1990s DFO found a new disease in the chinook salmon farms off Campbell River, they called it Salmon Leukemia. They found it infected 100% of the wild chinook that were exposed and killed most of them. They reported it also killed up to 100% of the chinook in the farms prompting the industry to switch largely to Atlantics. However, using vaccinations for related diseases, such as BKD, chinook salmon farming continues along both sides of Vancouver Island and the symptoms of this virus persist in the farm salmon records.
So in addition to all the habitat loss and harvesting you mention perhaps we need to consider a new disease and disease vector. You didn't mention it nor did I see it in the mainstream news reports on failing Chinook runs but it could be consistent with precipitous stock collapse. Was it a precipitous collapse or a long slow slide? The public just doesn't have access to what is known and not known. That leads to suspicion and conspiracy theories. Transparency is the best policy to allay such problems but instead there seems to be more and more secrecy around fisheries and just about everyhting else associated with government.