Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: troutbreath on February 26, 2006, 07:18:13 AM
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Stock up on the "Betty's" and stand your ground at Peg Leg, should be the mother of all gong shows this summer. :o
Sunday » February 26 » 2006
Millions of sockeye don't mean riches for fishery
CONSERVATION I Low Cultus Lake run mixed with more stable Fraser stocks
Larry Pynn
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, February 25, 2006
THE REGION I A strong return of 17.4 million sockeye salmon to the Fraser River predicted for this year won't translate into a windfall commercial fishery, according to a federal fisheries department official.
Alan Cass, chairman of the Pacific scientific advice review committee, cautioned in an interview Friday that 22 separate sockeye runs make up the Fraser River pre-season forecast and the two biggest, Quesnel Lake and Shuswap Lake, overlap to varying degrees with the depressed Cultus Lake stocks.
An estimated 6.6 million sockeye are destined for the Shuswap system and 4.6 million for the Quesnel system.
Only 5,800 sockeye are projected to return this summer to Cultus Lake, a stock that is listed as endangered by the federal Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, and is managed for a maximum harvest of 10 to 12 per cent.
COSEWIC blames the plight of the Cultus Lake sockeye on overfishing and high pre-spawn mortality since 1995, when the fish started entering the Fraser River early and fell victim to parasites. It describes the stock as a "genetically unique population . . . at risk of extinction."
About one half of the Cultus Lake sockeye's life is spent in Cultus Lake, and the other half in the northern Pacific Ocean off Alaska. About 1.5 million people per year visit Cultus Lake.
When Cultus Lake sockeye are moving up the Fraser River with larger runs, fisheries managers are obliged to reduce commercial fishing pressure as a conservation measure. Last year managers allowed no commercial fishing on Fraser-bound sockeye.
"Cultus Lake is the problem child," Cass said from his Nanaimo office.
Paul Kershaw, spokesman for Johnstone Strait gillnetters, said he expects Canadian commercial fishermen to harvest 2.5 to four million sockeye this year, which compares with a harvest of eight to 10 million sockeye on a run of similar size 15 or so years ago.
"We're constrained by the weaker stocks," he confirmed.
Sockeye have a four-year life cycle, with the mean run size for this particular cycle 12.8 million fish. The 17.4 million predicted for 2006 exceeds the mean by more than 4.5 million fish, with the odds 50-50 of the actual runs coming in higher or lower than the forecast.
The Fraser sockeye runs begin in July and continue through October. More accurate assessments will follow later in the year from test fisheries and a hydroacoustic fish-counting station at Mission.
Cass noted that warmer waters in the Pacific could affect the final returns.
As well, the Quesnel run could be lower than predicted based on record small fry sampled in Quesnel Lake from this same cycle. The reason for their small size could be growing numbers of fish on the spawning beds, forcing fry to compete for a limited food source, he said.
Over the past few years, the Fraser fishery has been beset by charges of mismanagement by Ottawa and illegal fishing by native bands such as the Cheam in the lower Fraser.
lpynn@png.canwest.com
Fraser sockeye run estimates
Preliminary 2006 estimates for sockeye salmon returns for 22 Fraser River stocks for this summer.
Mean Run Size
Sockeye stock/timing group 1970-2004 2006 cycle
Early Stuart 362,000 129,000
Early Summer 492,000 586,000
Bowron 35,000 21,000
Fennell 25,000 13,000
Gates 58,000 21,000
Nadina 82,000 24,000
Pitt 67,000 56,000
Raft 29,000 14,000
Scotch 49,000 119,000
Seymour 147,000 318,000
Misc 1,553,630 854,554
Summer 4,669,000 3,943,000
Chilko 1,636,000 1,597,000
Late Stuart 686,000 305,000
Quesnel 1,824,000 1,538,000
Stellako 523,000 503,000
Late 3,196,000 8,143,000
Cultus 28,000 28,000
Harrison 35,000 45,000
Late Shuswap 2,206,000 6,745,000
Portage 52,000 80,000
Weaver 384,000 594,000
Birkenhead 491,000 651,000
TOTAL 8,719,000 12,801,000
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
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Lets face it, the only way our commercial fleet has evolved in the last 50 years is that it has developed better methods for taking more and more fish.
I don't understand why DFO doesn't force a little evolution on our comercial fleet ie transition it from primarily an at sea fishery to a more of a terminal fishery. Sounds like intercepting weak stocks while run mingle is one of the biggest management problems that DFO can actually address!!!
And in fact the smaller an area you have fishers extracting resources, the easier things get (monitoring to ensure numbers check out) and enforce to ensure compliance).
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Lets face it, the only way our commercial fleet has evolved in the last 50 years is that it has developed better methods for taking more and more fish.
I don't understand why DFO doesn't force a little evolution on our comercial fleet ie transition it from primarily an at sea fishery to a more of a terminal fishery. Sounds like intercepting weak stocks while run mingle is one of the biggest management problems that DFO can actually address!!!
And in fact the smaller an area you have fishers extracting resources, the easier things get (monitoring to ensure numbers check out) and enforce to ensure compliance).
Terminal area would be at each river, not at the mouth of the Fraser.
Value of the fish would be next to nothing at market.
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Thats not exactly true...they catch tonnes of chrome fish hundreds of KMs up the fraser...and as an example, to protect the cultas run, all you need to do is get above the confluence of the veddr/fraser.
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Only 5,800 sockeye are projected to return this summer to Cultus Lake
Where did this guy come up with this hilarious number? We'd be lucky to get back 580 ???
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Probably more like 58! :(
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lol..ya some of those numbers seem to be a little over done. Remember its just predictions. No need to bottom bounce anyway. Go to the vedder and catch springs and sockeye short floating. Much funner than casting a 3ounce weight.
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"Terminal area would be at each river, not at the mouth of the Fraser.
Value of the fish would be next to nothing at market."
Open season for commercial fleet in the Fraser and no one shows up cause the fish are worthless. Not likely, usually the opening is a drift net traffic jam with every commercial boat on the Fraser. From what Iv'e seen. Usually there are no fish caught for three days after the "drift" if you get my drift. Nothing wrong with trying to save some sockeye from extinction, if you get to fish later. Probably shouldn't catch sockeye from the Vedder neither for the stocks sake. No nets as well.
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From what I have seen lthe last several years there were way too many sockeyes hooked (and foul hooked) in the Vedder by those who were targeting chinooks during the summer. There were way too many steelhead smolts killed over limit as well.
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the word is out a one week opening starting aug 1, maybe
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I hope they just open it when they say they are going to. Last year it was just pathetic around hear during august. That was a bit of a black eye :-\
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I was out in Aug fishing for Red's and PInks!!! Early August. Between 2 of us we caught somewhere around 20-25 Sockeye. Up to that point we believed DFO when they said that there was no fish!! But I guess that 20+ sockeye in a couple hrs can change a person's opinion!! ;) We also go 4 Spring, 3 red 1 white and 8 pink!! So a Yeah, in our opinion, prime time was still a good time!!
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What I mean by black eye was all the talk of people having 'protest fisheries' with their freezers as the main beneficiary :-[
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I agree with Big Steel it was hard not to catch a sockeye last year... that is until the natives had their opening, once they got their nets out the river was almost void of socks. I wasn't around for the opening but I had a hell of a time not catching them before it opened.