Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: barklee on September 01, 2015, 01:53:52 PM
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I always walk the dog along the river between New West and Burnaby and I noticed compared to other years at the same time there isn't much salmon jumping around, even during incoming tides. I guess that is why pinks are still closed. It might be a stupid questions but will the pinks come later as the water cools, did they die, do they stay in ocean for another year or do they go to another river system?
Just wondering?
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Some of these observations are personal and some are from what I read online, FWIW.
1. Pinks don't jump as much as other salmon, so if you saw jumpers in other years, are you sure they were pinks? Pinks tend to porpoise or just flip their fin or tail out of the water, especially when a big school is cruising through.
2. I think this is still pretty early for the bulk of the Fraser pink run - it is only September 1 after all, and they should be going strong into October.
3. Will they come later as the water cools? Pinks are actually more warm-water tolerant than other salmon species, so this doesn't deter them as much. They certainly aren't as sensitive as sockeye.
4. Did they stay in the ocean for another year? - No, this is one rule that Pinks follow strictly - 2 year life cycle, period.
5. Do they go to another river system? - Of all the species of pacific salmon, Pinks seem to stray the most, especially when there is something making their home waters unreachable or undesirable. This was a conclusion from a large workshop on straying salmon that was held about 20 years ago - I'll post the link if I can find it again because it is fascinating reading. The conclusion was that some strains of some species virtually never stray, while some have a stray rate of 20 percent. There was a huge variance in Chinook strains - some seemed to have much better homing skills than others.
My personal fantasy is that a large percentage of the pinks this year were eaten up by monster springs that will be returning in October! Wishful thinking I know, but I have caught and seen some really dinky pinks this year. I can easily imagine a 40 lb spring eating 1 lb pinks, but I don't know if it ever happens.
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I always walk the dog along the river between New West and Burnaby and I noticed compared to other years at the same time there isn't much salmon jumping around, even during incoming tides. I guess that is why pinks are still closed. It might be a stupid questions but will the pinks come later as the water cools, did they die, do they stay in ocean for another year or do they go to another river system?
Just wondering?
it was sockeye jumping you saw .
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Thanks WAfishboy, that was a good and interesting post.
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pink run for the fraser this year is about 6 million , about half of 2 yrs ago and less than 4yrs ago. still early for big numbers entering the river.
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2. I think this is still pretty early for the bulk of the Fraser pink run - it is only September 1 after all, and they should be going strong into October.
Lower Fraser pinks definitely don't go strong into October. Usually they're done just after mid september.
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pink run for the fraser this year is about 6 million , about half of 2 yrs ago and less than 4yrs ago. still early for big numbers entering the river.
lies. 50% chance of being 14mil
2 years ago fraser pink run was 22 million
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pink run for the fraser this year is about 6 million , about half of 2 yrs ago and less than 4yrs ago. still early for big numbers entering the river.
Do you know what year it is currently? ;)
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As I mentioned in the Fraser River salmon updates, PSC's Fraser River Panel today approved the latest in-season estimate of Lower Fraser River pink salmon run size, which is 6 million fish. This is significantly lower than the pre-forecast P50 estimate. 6 million fish is in fact DFO's escapement goal so it leaves very small amount of fish for TAC, meaning that retention of pink salmon in recreational fishery is unlikely to happen at this point.
It is September 1st after all, and saltwater test fisheries had problems last week due to the bad weather conditions, so the run size can change throughout the next couple of weeks.
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Lots of pink have already been in the river now.
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As I mentioned in the Fraser River salmon updates, PSC's Fraser River Panel today approved the latest in-season estimate of Lower Fraser River pink salmon run size, which is 6 million fish. This is significantly lower than the pre-forecast P50 estimate. 6 million fish is in fact DFO's escapement goal so it leaves very small amount of fish for TAC, meaning that retention of pink salmon in recreational fishery is unlikely to happen at this point.
It is September 1st after all, and saltwater test fisheries had problems last week due to the bad weather conditions, so the run size can change throughout the next couple of weeks.
What confused me is it said they estimated the run size at 5 million but they were assuming 6 million for management purposes. Perhaps that's so they can justify some FN harvest while not opening the commercial and sport harvest? If the estimated run size really is below the escapement needed, I don't see how they can justify any openings at all.
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it was sockeye jumping you saw .
This video from 2009 that I found (from a Search Engine) shows something very similar to what the OP and other dog walkers probably see in the Fraser during early pink season. I saw similar to this on Sept 2, 2009 in the South Arm of Richmond.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo57BMZYxvU
Here's another video from the same person confirming that the first video was filmed in the Fraser River. The first 44 seconds of 2nd video was from Fraser River and the rest was from Vedder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjH1q1ZcMsM
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A local I talked to today in Chilliwack says he's noticed numbers are way down this year for pinks compared to 2013 and 2011
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Thanks everyone for chiming in SO:
As I understand even if they open the pink season in the lower Fraser it would be a little more challenge catching one as their numbers are significantly lower.
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I just got back from a weeks fishing north of Campbell river. I go this time most years. In odd years the pinks are so plentiful they are a nuisance, and that's what I expected this year. Turns out we only caught the odd one, actually caught more springs than pinks.
Sure does not seem like a large pink run at all.
BTW the spring fishing was great :)
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Very strange indeed. Maybe the warmer waters have brought in more predators.
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The low numbers could be due to a high mortality rate from 2013. If I remember correctly, September had extremely low water followed by intense rains. Maybe spawning success was low. Our new, higher ocean temperatures are supposed to favour pinks though.
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I've been on the river near maple ridge everyday for the past 5 days, I've noticed almost zero pinks. But I've counted over 60 sturgeon jumping around.
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I hooked pinks as early as late July this year in the sandheads area. I have not seen any pink schools jumping in the salt water/banana area in my last 2 trips. I have a feeling that the majority of the Fraser pink run is already over.
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I hooked pinks as early as late July this year in the sandheads area. I have not seen any pink schools jumping in the salt water/banana area in my last 2 trips. I have a feeling that the majority of the Fraser pink run is already over.
LOL
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Or maybe we slayed them pretty hard two years ago... ::)
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I hooked pinks as early as late July this year in the sandheads area. I have not seen any pink schools jumping in the salt water/banana area in my last 2 trips. I have a feeling that the majority of the Fraser pink run is already over.
No way. It's just getting started.
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It could be that the Pinks you seen in July were fish from different rivers.
Ive been on walks along the Lower Fraser about 4 times in the last month or so and have yet to see a Sockeye jump.
Pretty scary stuff.
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The low numbers could be due to a high mortality rate from 2013. If I remember correctly, September had extremely low water followed by intense rains. Maybe spawning success was low. Our new, higher ocean temperatures are supposed to favour pinks though.
you remember correctly but estimates of fry outmigration in the spring of 2014 indicated pretty good survival and that's what the 14 million estimate was based upon. BTW the 50% probability estimate means the forecast is the return would be 14 million or higher.
I've been fishing the Fraser Pink Salmon run since the early 90s and it's been a few cycles since we had a late return. My memory and my fishing journal support the idea that strong returns were typically later than we've experienced the last 2 or 3 cycles. PSC's summer run sockeye estimates varied by about 50% ( from 1.7 to 1.1 then to 1.6 million) based on test fisheries. It's fair to say not only was the run lower than forecast, it was late.
I was on both the Squamish and at Furry Creek Friday last week and I was astonished how many large schools of fish were showing at Furry Creek - though many were clearly oriented to going up the creek and not up the sound. Still my sense is the fish are timing later than the last few cycles so hopefully the 6 million estimate will be revised substantially upward.
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you remember correctly but estimates of fry outmigration in the spring of 2014 indicated pretty good survival and that's what the 14 million estimate was based upon. BTW the 50% probability estimate means the forecast is the return would be 14 million or higher.
I've been fishing the Fraser Pink Salmon run since the early 90s and it's been a few cycles since we had a late return. My memory and my fishing journal support the idea that strong returns were typically later than we've experienced the last 2 or 3 cycles. PSC's summer run sockeye estimates varied by about 50% ( from 1.7 to 1.1 then to 1.6 million) based on test fisheries. It's fair to say not only was the run lower than forecast, it was late.
I was on both the Squamish and at Furry Creek Friday last week and I was astonished how many large schools of fish were showing at Furry Creek - though many were clearly oriented to going up the creek and not up the sound. Still my sense is the fish are timing later than the last few cycles so hopefully the 6 million estimate will be revised substantially upward.
I hope you're right, but a look at the Johnstone Strait test fisheries' results say otherwise. The amount of fish being caught has been on a steady decline since mid August and they are only a fraction of the amount caught in 2013 on the same days. Stock composition has also indicated that % of Fraser River fish is declining. Usually when the stock is late, the revised number doesn't increase that much anyway, but that may just be enough for DFO to provide an opening for Lower Fraser recs.
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As I mentioned I would earlier, here is the link from the workshop on straying in pacific salmon. http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/publications/scipubs/techmemos/tm30/tm30.html#toc (http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/publications/scipubs/techmemos/tm30/tm30.html#toc)
One of the most fascinating pieces is the one titled "HOMING, STRAYING, AND COLONIZATION". Here is a piece of it:
"In addition to differences in straying among rivers, straying can also differ from year to year. Interannual variability may be associated with catastrophic events such as the eruption of Mount St. Helens (Leider 1989). Less dramatic environmental changes such as variation in flow and temperature may also contribute to temporal variability in straying, but definitive studies do not seem to have been conducted on these subjects. There is some evidence that temporal variation in straying is associated with population size (Quinn and Fresh 1984). In years when many fish returned to the Cowlitz River hatchery, homing was better than in years when fewer fish returned. This suggests that the dynamics of small populations may be different from those of larger populations. This is an important issue and it needs to be evaluated with other data sets. There is also interannual variation in straying from a site, perhaps related to water quality, rearing conditions, or the number of returning salmon. The tendency of hatchery-produced salmon to enter their hatchery, as opposed to spawning in the river, can also vary greatly from year to year (Nicholas and Downey 1983).
Age at return also contributes to variability in straying. Older chinook salmon tend to stray more than younger fish (Quinn and Fresh 1984, Quinn et al. 1991, Unwin and Quinn 1993, Pascual et al. 1995). The difference in the rate of straying by chinook jacks and by 4- or 5-year-old fish may be an order of magnitude (Quinn and Fresh 1984). Age-specific straying rates have also been observed for coho salmon (Labelle 1992), but not for Atlantic salmon (Potter and Russell 1994). Perhaps, the longer a fish is out to sea, the more it forgets the olfactory cues it needs to return to its natal locality. The turnover of sensory epithelial cells associated with odor recognition (Nevitt et al. 1994), changes in the odors of river water, or some unknown evolutionary mechanism may be responsible for this age effect. Hatchery practices can also influence the age structure of the spawning population, which may in turn influence straying."
To the extent that pink salmon have been found to crowd out the other salmons species when they are very abundant, I wouldn't consider the low return this year a bad thing. However, if it is a signal that ocean conditions are bad for all salmon, that might mean bad coho, chum and chinook returns in the next two years. I personally won't mind if I don't have so many pinks getting in the way this year (in the Chedder) - 2 years ago it was really difficult to find chinook and coho when the river was choked with pinks. Only when a good rain washed out all the zombie pinks did the coho fishing really take off.
As for the majority of the run already passing - look at what happened with the Bristol Bay sockeye this year. The run seemed to be early and then tapered off quickly. Only after many of the tenders and processors left did the main part of the run show up - very late and very abundant.
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last estimate was that about 80% of Fraser Pinks are coming through Juan De Fuca in previous cycles Johnstone Strait was the route of 30 to 45% of the run. How many days does it take a pink to swim from Cape Scott to Juan De Fuca? That would be the delay just in data collection and not run timing 2009 through 2013 saw runs in the order of 18 to 20 million+. You have to go back to 2007 when the run was 10 million for something close to this years forecast.
PSC and DFO pay no where near the same attention to pink salmon estimates. They don't try to get a good handle on actual spawning escapement or test fish the river after about the middle of Sept - and there are runs that come in well into October.
1999 was a year when pink salmon test fishing results dropped sharply in late August only to rise in September with "several million fish" projected to enter the river after Sept 10th when the PSC shut down monitoring of the salmon runs.
Here's a couple of quotes from my 2007 journal: Vedder Sept 24th: Fishing was awesome until 11am or so (once the sun got on the water) and I was hooking a fish every 2nd cast or so until about 10am
Sep 25th Harrison: Raining windy cold day. Lots of pinks – mostly starting to colour but hooked 30 to 40. Killed 2
On the 26th I killed 4 "all like dimes"
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As for the majority of the run already passing - look at what happened with the Bristol Bay sockeye this year. The run seemed to be early and then tapered off quickly. Only after many of the tenders and processors left did the main part of the run show up - very late and very abundant.
Thanks, WAfishboy. I noticed the same with the Cap coho run this year. I checked my fishing logs from the past 3 years and between 3rd week of August and 1st week of September, there used to be jumping coho all over the west van shoreline with some pinks (2013) hanging around the shallower waters. So far, I haven't even seen a fraction of the jumping cohos that we used to see around this time of year. I've talked to other anglers who fish that area frequently and they are all hoping that it's just a late run of coho this year. The other thing that I noticed is the warmer water temps compared to previous year. Maybe that's one of the reasons that fish are still holding in cooler water but I could be wrong, as I am in many cases. :)
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The other thing that I noticed is the warmer water temps compared to previous year. Maybe that's one of the reasons that fish are still holding in cooler water but I could be wrong, as I am in many cases. :)
Yeah, like maybe it is warmer water temps that are making the fish favor Juan De Fuca over Johnstone Straight this year - a longer route, and/or maybe they had to migrate farther north/west to find cool water and food.
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Thanks for the link wafishboy. Very Interesting read. My fingers are crossed that it's just a late run as I enjoy spoon fishing for pinks in the lower fraser after work.