Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum

Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: ShaunO on July 29, 2014, 02:33:51 PM

Title: Pink madness!
Post by: ShaunO on July 29, 2014, 02:33:51 PM
This is reportedly the Quinsam river near the hatchery. To say there are a lot of Pinks in the system is an understatement!

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10552392_658525834230831_2800586341747337765_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Humpy on July 29, 2014, 02:36:57 PM
Want to make the trip to Campbell river, not sure if it is worth the drive from the LM.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: SkagitDreamer on July 29, 2014, 02:42:53 PM
That's insane!!! 
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: VAGAbond on July 29, 2014, 03:41:00 PM
When the old timers talked about so many salmon "you could walk across the river on their backs", that is what they were talking about.  The abundance that used to be common here was phenomenal compared to now,
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: SkagitDreamer on July 29, 2014, 03:45:19 PM
You said it VAGAbond! That's first thing I thought of - dad actually telling a believable fish story haha but on all rivers with all runs - that must have been abundance. I never saw the quinsam like that. Wild.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: TheLostSockeye on July 29, 2014, 05:12:29 PM
This is reportedly the Quinsam river near the hatchery. To say there are a lot of Pinks in the system is an understatement!

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10552392_658525834230831_2800586341747337765_n.jpg)

here i found the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKXgGT1WVMc

i wonder what the run size is? 30,000? 300,000?
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: VAGAbond on July 29, 2014, 05:28:02 PM
Those fish look bright considering they are stacked up at the hatchery.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: redtide on July 29, 2014, 09:01:06 PM
never seen so many salmon in one area. great news for the river and the hatchery.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: dobrolub on July 29, 2014, 09:10:27 PM
My late grandma told me animals know when they need to produce more offsprings to make sure survival of the species
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: clarki on July 29, 2014, 10:16:16 PM
An amazing, gratifying sight.

Reminds me of a story that Mark Hume wrote about in "The Run of the River". In 1905, one of the first fisheries officers in the Shuswap Region, David Mitchell, camped on the banks of the Salmon River about a mile upstream from the lake. He tied his canoe to stake that was driven into the bed of the stream and went to sleep with not a salmon in sight. In the morning the river was full of sockeye. So many that they were forced up the sloping sides of the river to fall back on those below, and his canoe was resting on the backs of a writhing red mass.

The fish lower downstream, suffocating for oxygen, rushed back to the lack to breathe fresh water through their gills. The rush of fish downstream was like the noise of a thousand ducks rising from a lake. The river became quiet again, flowing by the stake 14 inches below the wet high water mark reached a few minutes before.

Sadly that run of sockeye was extinct 8 years later follwing a series of rockslides caused by railroad construction at Hells Gate.

                   
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: islanddude on July 29, 2014, 10:26:05 PM
 The bear that I saw this evening was not having any problem catching his fish.
    That fence should be open to let those early pinks continue up the river. They built a by pass on the falls before the lower Quinsam Lake. A lot of those bright fish probably where born in the upper system.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Every Day on July 29, 2014, 10:28:08 PM
Those fish farms are sure doing a good job of making the pinks all go extinct....
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Shawn6o4 on July 30, 2014, 09:25:15 AM
That is the mother load lol. Wow I've never seen that in my life..
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Easywater on July 30, 2014, 10:31:42 AM
Those fish farms are sure doing a good job of making the pinks all go extinct....

Pinks have been having good returns for several years ever since the fish farms fallowed or used Slice during pink fry migration periods.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: swimmingwiththefishes on July 30, 2014, 11:26:13 AM
what does "fallowed" or "use splice" mean Easywater?
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Ambassador on July 30, 2014, 02:01:05 PM
what does "fallowed" or "use splice" mean Easywater?
I think he means "Allowed" and "Slice" is a product used in fish farming to attempt to control sea lice.
http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/salmon-farming-problems/environmental-impacts/chemical-treatments-slice/
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: clarki on July 30, 2014, 02:11:30 PM
No, he meant "fallow". Dictionary.com is your friend.

Usually the term is used in the context of land agriculture, but it equally applies to aquaculture.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: DionJL on July 30, 2014, 02:20:30 PM
Dictionary.com is your friend.

Or if you use Chrome for a web-browser just get the Dictionary Extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-dictionary-by-goog/mgijmajocgfcbeboacabfgobmjgjcoja) then all you have to do is double click a word and the definition pops up.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Dave on July 30, 2014, 04:13:20 PM
Pinks have been having good returns for several years ever since the fish farms fallowed or used Slice during pink fry migration periods.
True enough Easywater, SLICE applications and fallowing did/does happen, to the credit of the farmers, but how about this explanation … Almo and company were just plain wrong when they predicted the extirpation of pinks in the Broughton.  Pink salmon seem to be doing just fine along the Pacific coast, if they are given what they need … good spawning gravel with suitable water temperatures and flows, a fishery that allows enough spawners, and a healthy estuary.

I know you follow this stuff Easywater but for those who may have missed it, this link previously posted on FWR may help explain the rise of the pinks.


http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Hyper+abundant+pink+salmon+outcompeting+wild+sockeye/10050284/story.html
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Easywater on July 30, 2014, 05:06:02 PM
I read that article and thought it was reaching a bit.
Sockeye EAT pink fry so more pinks should mean more Sockeye, no?

How about 2 articles by your favourite anti-farmer?

Regarding Slice:
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2009/09/bc-is-in-the-pink-thank-you-all.html

Fallowing - see item 7.
http://www.alexandramorton.ca/lb/pdf/AM_Memorandum.pdf

Just kidding, I just put those in there for general information for others about the fallowing and Slice references I mentioned.

I feel that one item in the article may be valid in that pinks may climate change survivors.
They return to the rivers later than most Sockeye returns so they come in to cooler waters.

Is it a coincidence that this year's Sockeye return is much bigger than the other 3 years?
This year's return comes back around the same time as pinks instead a month earlier.

Or perhaps Sockeye are suffering the same fate as rainbow trout - acidic ground runoff in lakes due to de-forestation and pine beetle damage?
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Dave on July 30, 2014, 06:24:23 PM
Is it a coincidence that this year's Sockeye return is much bigger than the other 3 years?
This year's return comes back around the same time as pinks instead a month earlier.
Or perhaps Sockeye are suffering the same fate as rainbow trout - acidic ground runoff in lakes due to de-forestation and pine beetle damage?
No coincidence at all in my mind.  Later run Fraser River salmonids will out perform earlier run fish because they encounter less warm water and high flows, but in the early 90's and until recently, these later fish entered the Fraser far earlier than normal and suffered huge mortalities ... Cultus sockeye took a huge hit, as did Weaver Creek, Harrison River and to a lesser extent, the Shuswap component, all mainly due to Parvicapsula minibicornis, a kidney parasite.   The good news is this early entry into freshwater seems to have stopped, that is late run stocks are now returning at near historic dates so hopefully this years Late run fish stay in the salt for as long as they have to, and ... we don't fish the $hit out of them while they stage and then enter the Fraser.

There are others better qualified than I to talk of sockeye nursery lakes limnology and water chemistry ... hope they do.
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Mr Z on July 31, 2014, 11:41:48 PM
Lol you don't even have to fish for those. You just walk down there and grab one from the tail for the BBQ  ::)
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: dave c on August 01, 2014, 06:07:02 PM
Good Luck short floating for these. One inch leader below float. LOL
Title: Re: Pink madness!
Post by: Floater on August 02, 2014, 09:55:20 AM
I wonder how many of them the hatchery workers will bother to spawn.