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[RalphH]

Saw more chum today but that may be do to the low clear water and checking out some deep holding water from a high bank. There were some coho mixed in with them. A few guys twitching jigs were catching chums and coho at high noon. I got a small coho earlier in the morning and that was it pour moi.

Overall chum #s still seem low to me. Pools that would have held easily  > 100 has dozens instead.

[firstlight]

For the past 10 years or so give or take a year or three the Chum numbers have been overall terrible.
Never thought id see the day that Chum numbers were questionable.
I also never thought id see the day that Eulichons were endangered in the Fraser either.
Scary times we live in and even scarier are those that make the big decisions on the different fisheries.

[CohoJake]

Quite a few chum at the run I was at this morning.  When I approached the bank with my headlamp on (still 15 minutes or so before it was light enough to fish) I saw a dozen or so chum milling around in the shallows with their backs out of the water.  Plenty of chum rolling along the far bank all morning as well.  Thankfully I only hooked one nasty old chum while I was seeking coho.

[Hike_and_fish]

For the past 10 years or so give or take a year or three the Chum numbers have been overall terrible.
Never thought id see the day that Chum numbers were questionable.
I also never thought id see the day that Eulichons were endangered in the Fraser either.
Scary times we live in and even scarier are those that make the big decisions on the different fisheries.

I remeber when Moutain Slough, Maria Slough and the Harrison were so thick with Chum it looked like the river was a giant snake. Even the Stave had a stink for miles. Now not so much. I feel that in the not so distant future we'll be talking about protective measures for the Fraser Chum.

[Steelhawk]

chum roe fishery has got to stop first. Herring and chum roe fisheries are bad for these species. DFO needs to realize they are the biggest culprits for allowing these fisheries to cater to FN and commies, and now the beach seine chum roe fishery and gill netting are endangering IFS steelhead. When will they realize they are the real problem themselves and change their course?

[wildmanyeah]

For those that like historical data

commercial catch statistics : http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/stats/comm/ann/index-eng.html

Escapement statistics:  https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/c48669a3-045b-400d-b730-48aafe8c5ee6

[Sage2106]

The biggest problem with the chum beach seine fishery is location. They should not be allowed to beach seine in the river where the fish are spawing. They do a set catch say 10 females that are already discharging single eggs they dont want her so thrown up onto the beach she goes so as not to be caught again. So she doesnt get to spawn her eggs taken out of the equation.Then they drag the nets through the fresh reds and disturb all those eggs. Thats why the returns each year are getting progressively worse. Thousands of eggs destroyed every day. 

[Rodney]

Plenty of fish this morning, in the water that is... The float dipped three times before time was up.

[Dave]

The biggest problem with the chum beach seine fishery is location. They should not be allowed to beach seine in the river where the fish are spawing. They do a set catch say 10 females that are already discharging single eggs they dont want her so thrown up onto the beach she goes so as not to be caught again. So she doesnt get to spawn her eggs taken out of the equation.Then they drag the nets through the fresh reds and disturb all those eggs. Thats why the returns each year are getting progressively worse. Thousands of eggs destroyed every day.

Your'e preaching to the converted.  What we need to figure out is how to stop it, or at least minimize the damage and waste.

[Sage2106]

To minimize the waste should only be beach seining below the canal where the beaches are more sand then anything and unsuitable for spawning. How the destruction of the reds is allowed to continue baffles me.

[BBarley]

The unfortunate part of this fishery is that nobody seems to focus on maybe changing the perception to the market that consumes the target query, in this case keta roe. Without dragging race into the equation and completely derailing a thread on the C/V fishing conditions, that could be something we focus on when we send our product overseas. The cost of this fishery to the last remaining wild steelhead returns as well as the wasted biomass so desperately needed every fall in some very crucial spawning and rearing habitat.

The original photos were of wasted chum during a economic sockeye beach seine opening, and now there are communal openings for chum beach seines.
Might I ask why would there be openings allowed weeks later for a species that was disregarded to the point they couldn't even be released back into the water. The closure window ? Window dressing fishery management at it's finest.

[RalphH]

Following Firstlight's comments. Chum fisheries declined in most rivers up and down the coast. It started up north a year or 2 before it hit the Fraser Valley. While there was some increase in numbers in the last 5 years based on my observations there are certainly no where near what they where 10 to 15 years ago. The Chilliwack, Stave didn't suffer to the extent of some other rivers. The Harrison really seemed to be heavily hit. It once had a huge return of chum around Remembrance Day and that has close to disappeared. All these rivers have considerable enhancement. I  pretty strongly thinkthere is not one single cause of this that can be removed to fix the issuesand you have to consider it in context of the decline of many runs across 6 species of salmon (including steelhead). The roe fishery is nothing new and has been around for many years. If it is a major cause perhaps we need to end the use of roe as bait? One problem with all our salmon is it makes little to no sense to maintain high levels of exploitation by all user groups when it seems clear that whatever is happening in their freshwater and marine environments, these fish are facing serious trouble.

[CohoJake]

Following Firstlight's comments. Chum fisheries declined in most rivers up and down the coast. It started up north a year or 2 before it hit the Fraser Valley. While there was some increase in numbers in the last 5 years based on my observations there are certainly no where near what they where 10 to 15 years ago. The Chilliwack, Stave didn't suffer to the extent of some other rivers. The Harrison really seemed to be heavily hit. It once had a huge return of chum around Remembrance Day and that has close to disappeared. All these rivers have considerable enhancement. I  pretty strongly thinkthere is not one single cause of this that can be removed to fix the issuesand you have to consider it in context of the decline of many runs across 6 species of salmon (including steelhead). The roe fishery is nothing new and has been around for many years. If it is a major cause perhaps we need to end the use of roe as bait? One problem with all our salmon is it makes little to no sense to maintain high levels of exploitation by all user groups when it seems clear that whatever is happening in their freshwater and marine environments, these fish are facing serious trouble.

This is starting to stray pretty far from the thread topic, but are all of our memories of huge chum returns in the Vedder and the Harrison related to the previous hatchery production in the Chilliwack and Chehalis hatcheries?  There were plenty of chum in the lower river pool I was fishing on the Vedder this morning - probably twice as many as yesterday.  They are almost too thick for my liking - more than this and it gets hard to fish for coho without constantly hooking chum.  Does anyone know where to find hatchery production from these systems in the 1990s?

[Sage2106]

http://www.chehalis-hatchery.shawbiz.ca/stats.htm

[obie1fish]

Low and clear this evening, but managed to find some nice fishing all by myself. Yeah, feeling pretty smug about it. I'm enjoying it while I can. It doesn't happen every day, especially for me!