Fishing in British Columbia > General Discussion

The BC Steelhead Questionnaire

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RalphH:

Here's the result of the BC Steelhead questionnaire from the 10 years ending March 31, 2022. I recently submitted mine for 2023/24.

The last 10 years tells a story. Most of the parameters have dropped by half or more. Reporting has dropped from around 65  to 70% to 43%. Angling days have dropped by half. It's sort of scary what's happening and there is no sign it will get better. Locally participation still seems high and lots of anglers fish frequently through the season despite declining success. This is a typical behavior recognized in creel surveys throughout North America.

SuperBobby:
So in 10 years:
The angler effort (or pressure) has dropped by half.
The amount of Steelhead landed to shore or net has dropped from 104k to less than 16k per year.

And yet....Steelhead runs in general continue to decline.

I'm shocked that Ralphy boy would actually post proof of what we already knew....and that is that Steelhead fishermen (the Sporties) are not the reason that the numbers keep dropping.

RalphH:
I made no inference one way or the other. However to prove anything, a hypothesis has to be tested. The questionnaire data is not such a test. It just shows while angling effort declines as angling success does some anglers do continue to fish and even catch fish. Creel surveys have found just that in the past. In some cases (not necessarily steelhead),  drastically reducing bag limits, adopting catch and release regulations  and banning angling methods that cause high release mortality can dramatically increase abundance and angling success. All that's been done with steelhead in BC.

SuperBobby:

--- Quote from: RalphH on May 01, 2024, 01:12:24 PM ---In some cases (not necessarily steelhead), reducing drastically reducing bag limits, adopting catch and release regulations  and banning angling methods that cause high release mortality can dramatically increase abundance and angling success. All that's been done with steelhead in BC.

--- End quote ---

Except for the fact that 99% of those changes were done long before the time period in the study you provided. If we check our regulations from the last 12 years, we will find that basically nothing has been changed from 2012-2024.
So basically, we have the same regulations, with a sharp drop in angler effort and fish landed.....and still....the returns continue to diminish....

RalphH:

--- Quote from: SuperBobby on May 01, 2024, 03:47:05 PM ---Except for the fact that 99% of those changes were done long before the time period in the study you provided. If we check our regulations from the last 12 years, we will find that basically nothing has been changed from 2012-2024.
So basically, we have the same regulations, with a sharp drop in angler effort and fish landed.....and still....the returns continue to diminish....

--- End quote ---

I didn't provide a study. I made this clear and made the exact point you made in your last sentence in my previous post.

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