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[wildmanyeah]

There is no steelhead left in kanaka and I don’t believe it’s been stocked in a long time. It’s packed full of cutthroat tho. Hatchery programs for steelhead do seem to be horrible ineffective but maybe it’s just a warning for all salmon. Yet for chum they seem to have been sucessful.

They certainly can’t control what happening in the ocean. Anyways Ralph is right it’s all about acess and our need to catch every last fish.

Times and government are changing along with our climate. I can certainly see why it would be nice to have an advocate for the sport in government.

I am Certainly not going to bother argue with Ralph on this his philosophy line up with a lot of ENGO”s out their and they have turned the tide.

Next up is the southern killer whale issue on their list.

[RalphH]

I've found the Georgia Basin Steelhead survey which dates back to 2000 or so. The Chilliwack is summarized on page 87. Wild steelhead return is estimated at under 2500. Carrying capacity is estimated at 4000.


Interesting to note the Chilliwack is the only South Coast mainland river though to have a steelhead population of over 1,000 and most other well known rivers are estimated at 500 or less.


http://a100.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/acat/documents/r5856/2002LillRegion2tables092702_1499366584133_936271980.pdf

[Steelhawk]

"Yet for chum they seem to have been sucessful"

It is probably due to the huge number of chum fry that don't need to depend on the river ecology for long before they head out to the ocean. In fact this site says the fry begin downstream migration immediately after emerging from the gravel bed.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/salmon/chum/life_history/

These tiny fry may suffer even a higher mortality rate in the ocean or even while migrating down the Fraser as I think the notorious pike minnow find the fry the right size for sashimi. LOL. But with sheer number alone, even with a lower survival rate, they still come back in large number. However the 'blob' problem may still impact their survival as we don't see a huge return this year as in prior years. The Squamish return is such a shade of its former days. The Stave? Oh what a 'kingdom of the dog' there. I suspect the whole wide and slow flowing river bottom there is suitable spawning ground, and the gong show at the West bank can only touch a small fraction of the huge spawning ground and so a lot of spawners are spare.

[Dave]

Feeding chums in a hatchery for very short periods (weeks) has shown to, in some cases, double returns of unfed hatchery fish. Cheap to raise, prolific, and such corner pieces of coastal ecosystems ... why aren't we producing more of these?

[Jk47]

Feeding chums in a hatchery for very short periods (weeks) has shown to, in some cases, double returns of unfed hatchery fish. Cheap to raise, prolific, and such corner pieces of coastal ecosystems ... why aren't we producing more of these?

Agreed

[RalphH]

"immediately" is a bit of an exaggeration from my observation. Chum fry start gathering in shallow areas and backwaters in early spring and will usually remain there until water temperatures get to about 10 degrees then they school up and move downstream. I have never seen evidence that they feed.

I've always thought chum enhancement simply disguises the dramatic loss of coho and chinook numbers. Those declines  took place in spite of dramatic chum enhancement that sometimes left streams all but chocked with chum salmon. People seem them and think salmon are doing wonderfully when in fact they are not. I wonder if other salmon species productivity is at all correlated to chum. Apparently pink productivity has a negative correlation with steelhead numbers.

[Dave]

I wonder if other salmon species productivity is at all correlated to chum.

Interesting thought Ralph.  On coastal rivers I can see a possible correlation there for coho, steelhead and stream type chinook, and of course whitefish, resident trout and char populations.

[wildmanyeah]

I've always thought chum enhancement simply disguises the dramatic loss of coho and chinook numbers. Those declines  took place in spite of dramatic chum enhancement that sometimes left streams all but chocked with chum salmon. People seem them and think salmon are doing wonderfully when in fact they are not. I wonder if other salmon species productivity is at all correlated to chum. Apparently pink productivity has a negative correlation with steelhead numbers.

Pinks were extirpated from Kanaka in the 1950's for these reason. spawning grounds were operating at near capacity and im sure they were wanting to make room for more commercial valuable Coho.

That is a fair assessment I have seen chum being bullies on spawning grounds while fishing for coho. For example there are falls on Kanaka that the chum cant make it past, above the falls is where the majority of the coho spawn.  I honestly can't say if there would still be coho in the system if they shared the grounds with chum.

I honestly haven't seen any reports on salmon competition in spawning grounds and what it means.  Just what ive seen from chum chasing off coho.