Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing-related Issues & News => Topic started by: paddy on August 15, 2013, 03:22:39 PM
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Footage released by conservation group appears to show non-target salmon from sensitive stocks being left to die then callously discarded
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/20130815handoutfishermensalmon720p3000kbpsmp4/article13796100/ (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/20130815handoutfishermensalmon720p3000kbpsmp4/article13796100/)
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They are FN they can do what they want.
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Really sad. Those guys don't give poop about the fish living or dieing. DFO once again showing how useless they are.
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Might as well all start going vigilante since DFO will never grow a pair.
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They are FN they can do what they want.
Why do you say they're FN?
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http://www.watershed-watch.org/2013/08/media-release-new-evidence-shows-thousands-of-unwanted-salmon-are-needlessly-killed-when-no-one-is-watching-the-fishermen-groups-want-oversight/
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We need to put most of the blame where it belongs with the Federal government. Cut backs and political interference have made the DFO's job impossible.
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"The Prime Minister, the Fisheries Minister, and the Pattison Group, which controls most of the seine fleet, need to bring these salmon fisheries into the 21st century.”
From Chris's link which more fairly distributes the responcibilty of who's involved. Not to mention the useless guy's running the boats who should be heavily fined and have their boat confiscated.
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Might as well all start going vigilante since DFO will never grow a pair.
And what do you do when someone stabs you? Or you hurt someone. The courts don't like vigilantes ~ and you'll pay out pocket a ton of cash for a lawyer in a case you WILL lose.
Think about what happens 60 seconds ahead of your actions and you will appear a lot more intelligent.
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Why can we not put a webcam on every deck of every commercial fishing boat? Something only the DFO is able to watch. Even if they are not monitored closely, the fact that there is a camera right there, recording what you do, will straighten out a ton of misdoings.
Caught without a camera or tampering with the camera and you lose your commercial license and pay a huge fine. Camera can even have a GPS on it so they know where you are fishing and if you are legally able to do so.
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There already are cameras on most of the long line commercial boats, and actual human observers on ALL the Trawlers. I dealt with the human ones since they started Archipelago and most of them were hippy kids who wouldn't do any dishes evenbut ate the boat out of grub or either puked cause they couldn't get over their sea sickness, friggin panty wastes anyways. Their numbers were so far outta wack it was insane, what they thought was say 20,000 lbs of fish was more like 5,000 lbs, that sort of thing happened all the time and the fishermen were paying LARGE cash to have them on board too. Then you go to unload at the dock and you have to pay another "Port Monitor" $75 an hour to redo all the mistakes that the on-board observer made. And even though you still need the guy in town to tally the proper weights, it adds up to an exuberant amount of money every trip to pack around some ex logger protester/ dread lock queen with an attitude that thinks he knows everything about anything when it comes to fish, but can't tell the difference between a dover sole and a friggin turbot, brutal I tell ya, just brutal. The camera does a good job as they also have to have mandatory boards mounted on the side of the boat with color codes and such, and they can tell if the fish coming aboard is legal or not {in length, species, yaddda yaddda etc etc . Much more cost effective as well.
edit to add,
I should also mention that there was some good observers as well that helped out a lot with the goings on while aboard and as the program progressed it got better {just like most things do}.
And contrary to what many on here believe, the commercial fishermen don't all want to go out and slaughter the entire stock of the specific species their after, if they did they would be out of a job in no time, most just want a decent price for the bit of fish their allowed so they can keep their livelihood and support their families.
Now that "brailing" is mandatory on all seiners and it does slow down production and when you only have a 12 hour opening then every minute out there counts and you get sloppy with discarding fish as seen on the telly but in the end the mandatory brailing is much better for the fish as before we used to be able to stern ramp the works and powerful boats could ramp as many as 6 or 7 thousand pieces at a time which was not too good for species like coho, chinnook <{most of the time}and steelhead that were non retain-able to the commercial fisherman.
I'm retired now and i don't like seeing any of these fish go to waste and i never did while i was working either as i think there is a market for all the fish we caught, but only in a perfect world would you be able to catch exactly what is allowed, there will ALWAYS be some by-catch, it's inevitable, but supply and demand allows it and will continue to allow it as long as the world wants to eat fish that you buy out of the grocery store, whether it be here in Canada or anywhere in the entire world. It's just the way it is, and for the average sportu that has never stepped foiot aboard a commercial vessel and seen it in action it will be hard for them to understand the goings on and why it is the way it is.......and i totally understand that as well so I tend to lose my bias attitude nowadays and just rant the ODD time, LOLLOL, ;D ;D ;D
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I would assume cameras could be followed by just a couple people in a central location instead of paying some hippy kid to be on each boat. Commercial fisherman have a hard enough time making a living these days. It wouldn't be a real time deterent but you get a couple people watching the videos in fast forward to see if there is anything odd going on. If there is, it gets escalated to someone that is able to look at it in more depth. Dead salmon being tossed overboard is a fine. If it is a species that is hurting and can be positively identified from the camera, like a sockeye, the fine is higher. Have the cameras to where they turn on as soon as the electricity turns on and as long as electricity is on it records.
Would be a fairly cheap and effective method to monitor the fleet.
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I added to my last post just so know ;)
Having cam,eras on seine boats would not be that hard, you'd have to have one that shows the enitre deck ahead of the drum, one behind the drum and one in the location that ALL the fish have to pass through {one at a time}. The only thing with this is that the DFO would have to lengthen the commercial openings as this would take a very long time and what used to be a day of fishing would turn into mere hours so to speak.
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I added to my last post just so know ;)
Having cam,eras on seine boats would not be that hard, you'd have to have one that shows the enitre deck ahead of the drum, one behind the drum and one in the location that ALL the fish have to pass through {one at a time}. The only thing with this is that the DFO would have to lengthen the commercial openings as this would take a very long time and what used to be a day of fishing would turn into mere hours so to speak.
I wonder if the last one, the one where all fish have to pass through one at a time couldn't be eased by stating all fish released must be released on the (port) side, and have a camera there. If there are too many fish going in that don't seem to be making it, that is when you take a closer look. That way it doesn't cause a huge increase in time.
Alternatively, you could allow sets of a certain length of time instead of hours open. The net can only be open (catching) for x amount of time. A boat is allowed 2 or 3 sets on a specific day but they can be done anytime on that day. Then they could make it more responsive to conditions. If # retained or weight retained or so many cubic yards are retained (however is easier) is greater than X after your second set, you don't get a third. Cubic yards would be easy to follow and monitored with a sensor in the fish hold at a certain height.
During your time as a commercial fisherman, I'm sure you have experienced openings when the goal was a certain number of fish and everyone killed them and the take was so much higher than expected. Had that down in WA on chum one year. Only a certain retention was calculated for gillnetters (which my dad did with my help). The Natives went first and by the time they were done, they had caught their allotment, our allotment, and both our allotments for the next year too.
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^^ Tide, where the fish are, the number of fish in the opened area, these are all concerns that would make a time allowed set to be non productive to your idea. The places seine boats set a lot of the time are determined by what the tide is doing, how many boats are fishing the area, etc etc, it would be a huge fiasco to try and do all that.
Seiners have what they call revival tanks on board, where all non retainable fish are suppose to be put if they look like they need it. It's basically a tote with water in it that has a hose attached so there can be water always coming in and out {for the proper oxygen}, but when you have so many fish that your not allowed to keep it becomes redundant as they can't all fit, so the besat thing to do is get them back in their natural habitat {by cradling them like you would for a proper fish photo, not like you saw on TV where they just start hucking them back by the tail. This is bound to happen though, and as I said above in my edited post, unless you are there doing it it is hard for the sports fisherman to understand, which is completely acceptable as they've never done it before and would seem shocked to encounter the daily process of being a commercial fisherman.
As i try to describe all this i find it's really a no win situation in what I'm doing, some will say but what about this and that, why didn't you do this instead of that and so on and so on. I'm just trying to help some on here understand what is happening more than they already do, nothing more
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^^ Tide, where the fish are, the number of fish in the opened area, these are all concerns that would make a time allowed set to be non productive to your idea. The places seine boats set a lot of the time are determined by what the tide is doing, how many boats are fishing the area, etc etc, it would be a huge fiasco to try and do all that.
I realize all of that affect where the fish are and where the seiners set. That doesn't change if all of them open at 6 versus some of them going at 6 and some at 12 and some at 3. It would even some things out, although chances are they would all want to be out there at the first favorable tide.
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You get there early {usually a day or two} and anchor for position, if say Johnstone Straits is opened then you will have boats here there and everywhere anchored up in their favorite haunts like always, and usually the first set in the morning is the best as the fish aren't scattered yet, but only if your in the right place at that givenb time, it's a crap shoot most of the time, but on certain tides with fish in the area it's usually a given that you'll get some decent sets. After the first few morning sets the fleet scatters somewhat, looking for jumpers and so on to set on, while some stay put and work the area their at all day long top save on fuel etc etc.
No way in hell would the fishermen be happy if they had to go at different times, first is best {usually} unless ALL the fleet is only alllowed one specific spot and you get the draw for the best tide {which is not always the flood either, some places where the tide backs up is best}. That would not work at all so the way it is is best, open a certain area, let them fish, nut have cameras showing each and every piece that goes in the fish hole, and every piece that goes over the side.
In all the years I seined {over twenty} I can say that when we fished for sockeye, we caught sockeye, the pink by catch was very small, and the same when we fished for pinks, thew sockeye by catch was also very small, as the runs basically determine what was there at the time. What people saw on TV was not a lot of by catch, even though a lot on here will not agree, it wasn't.
When seiners fish pink salmon they basically need a boat load to make a buck as they are only paid maybe 25 cents a pound as opposed to dollars a pound for sockeye.
When I fished, every sockeye that came aboard was a dollar in every mans pocket, and every pink that came aboard was a quarter, pretty hard to make a buck fishing pinks, but when you got 25,000 lbs of sockeye for the week then it was a 25,000 paycheck as we were getting a buck a pound back then and only now do they give the fisherman more per pound as they only give them so many times to fish, not a couple straight months like before. We'd fish out of Rupert for 5 weeks at the start of the season then come back down here and fish a good month and a half until it was time to fish for fall dogs {chum}. Now the licenses have all changed and that doesn't happen any more unless your boat has a double license and i don't even know if that's allowed anymore, ??
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You get there early {usually a day or two} and anchor for position, if say Johnstone Straits is opened then you will have boats here there and everywhere anchored up in their favorite haunts like always, and usually the first set in the morning is the best as the fish aren't scattered yet, but only if your in the right place at that givenb time, it's a crap shoot most of the time, but on certain tides with fish in the area it's usually a given that you'll get some decent sets. After the first few morning sets the fleet scatters somewhat, looking for jumpers and so on to set on, while some stay put and work the area their at all day long top save on fuel etc etc.
No way in hell would the fishermen be happy if they had to go at different times, first is best {usually} unless ALL the fleet is only alllowed one specific spot and you get the draw for the best tide {which is not always the flood either, some places where the tide backs up is best}. That would not work at all so the way it is is best, open a certain area, let them fish, nut have cameras showing each and every piece that goes in the fish hole, and every piece that goes over the side.
In all the years I seined {over twenty} I can say that when we fished for sockeye, we caught sockeye, the pink by catch was very small, and the same when we fished for pinks, thew sockeye by catch was also very small, as the runs basically determine what was there at the time. What people saw on TV was not a lot of by catch, even though a lot on here will not agree, it wasn't.
When seiners fish pink salmon they basically need a boat load to make a buck as they are only paid maybe 25 cents a pound as opposed to dollars a pound for sockeye.
When I fished, every sockeye that came aboard was a dollar in every mans pocket, and every pink that came aboard was a quarter, pretty hard to make a buck fishing pinks, but when you got 25,000 lbs of sockeye for the week then it was a 25,000 paycheck as we were getting a buck a pound back then and only now do they give the fisherman more per pound as they only give them so many times to fish, not a couple straight months like before. We'd fish out of Rupert for 5 weeks at the start of the season then come back down here and fish a good month and a half until it was time to fish for fall dogs {chum}. Now the licenses have all changed and that doesn't happen any more unless your boat has a double license and i don't even know if that's allowed anymore, ??
They wouldn't have to go at different times. It was just an option. Heck, for gillnetters most of the time they made us fish at night which sucks big donkey privates.
Gillnetting we would catch a fair number of pinks on very heavy years but like you said, nothing compared to the number of sockeye caught.
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A lot of gill netters i know love fishing at night, and i know lots. Sometimes the dog fish can be brutal though. Try navigating around 500 gillnet boats with their nets out in the dark fishing the Fraser when your on an 80 foot seiner coming back to town, aint fun !! Sometimes running over a guys net was inevitable, but thye took it with a grain of salt most of the time, we'd tell them our boat name and they'd just bill us for the damage as most had another net to fish.
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A lot of gill netters i know love fishing at night, and i know lots. Sometimes the dog fish can be brutal though. Try navigating around 500 gillnet boats with their nets out in the dark fishing the Fraser when your on an 80 foot seiner coming back to town, aint fun !! Sometimes running over a guys net was inevitable, but thye took it with a grain of salt most of the time, we'd tell them our boat name and they'd just bill us for the damage as most had another net to fish.
We hated it. Especially in the early 90s before we got out of the business. The dog fish could be real brutal. The hake or however you spell those slimy nasty @#%@#% can be almost worse. Out by Pt Roberts in the 90s we were starting to get some bioluminecense in the water that made the nets quite visible. You couldn't let it sit for more than like a half hour and have to wash it with a pressured hose every set. It was miserable.
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Why can we not put a webcam on every deck of every commercial fishing boat? Something only the DFO is able to watch. Even if they are not monitored closely, the fact that there is a camera right there, recording what you do, will straighten out a ton of misdoings.
Caught without a camera or tampering with the camera and you lose your commercial license and pay a huge fine. Camera can even have a GPS on it so they know where you are fishing and if you are legally able to do so.
been saying that for years, but viewable not only by DFO ,but also by a panel of observers, with authority to sanction wrongdoers.
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been saying that for years, but viewable not only by DFO ,but also by a panel of observers, with authority to sanction wrongdoers.
I also feel the penalties should continue to the processers,
should not be hard to track,
licence # - sold to- who sold to - consumer!
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been saying that for years, but viewable not only by DFO ,but also by a panel of observers, with authority to sanction wrongdoers.
DFO or a panel. Someone with authority, or a couple groups with authority.
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Ban all net fishing.
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Quote from: Sandy on August 21, 2013, 01:56:06 PM
been saying that for years, but viewable not only by DFO ,but also by a panel of observers, with authority to sanction wrongdoers.
DFO or a panel. Someone with authority, or a couple groups with authority.
While I am not saying this is a bad idea... I'm curious to know how you guys think this will help the fishery... it's not like the commercial guys WANT to break the rules or harm by-catch species... if they had the choice they would love to not catch any at all, because at the end of the day it's more work for them to have to deal with the by-catch (revival box, release, record), which they are not getting paid for anyways. What would fining a skipper for accidentally having a couple pieces of closed species in his fish hold accomplish, especially when those fish were dead by the time they were brought on board anyways?
I have worked as an observer on several seine vessels so far this season, and although my presence may influence their actions in such that they are on their best behaviour when i am on board watching them, the culture and mentality among the fishermen is not as destructive as we/I had thought prior to starting this type of work. These guys are just collecting a paycheque, and they really don't want anything to stand in the way of it. There is a lot at stake if one chooses to fish illegally - despite the enforcement levels - and most guys I have met (both on the water and at the docks) fish as ethically as possible because they know full well their industry is very volatile, and will only last into the future if everyone co-operates.
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While I am not saying this is a bad idea... I'm curious to know how you guys think this will help the fishery... it's not like the commercial guys WANT to break the rules or harm by-catch species... if they had the choice they would love to not catch any at all, because at the end of the day it's more work for them to have to deal with the by-catch (revival box, release, record), which they are not getting paid for anyways. What would fining a skipper for accidentally having a couple pieces of closed species in his fish hold accomplish, especially when those fish were dead by the time they were brought on board anyways?
I have worked as an observer on several seine vessels so far this season, and although my presence may influence their actions in such that they are on their best behaviour when i am on board watching them, the culture and mentality among the fishermen is not as destructive as we/I had thought prior to starting this type of work. These guys are just collecting a paycheque, and they really don't want anything to stand in the way of it. There is a lot at stake if one chooses to fish illegally - despite the enforcement levels - and most guys I have met (both on the water and at the docks) fish as ethically as possible because they know full well their industry is very volatile, and will only last into the future if everyone co-operates.
Most don't but it only takes a couple breaking the rules to 1 give the industry a bad name and 2 cause serious damage. There are some that only do what they should when there are observers on board. Cameras would make it so observers are on board every time. I have met enough who only care about what they can get now or feel they are owed that it could be a real problem if they aren't supervised.
I understand on a gill netter how the fish can be dead when it is brought up but is it really that frequent on a seiner? If the fish is dead, then the fish should be kept no matter the species because otherwise we are just feeding the crabs. You get into all kinds of moral dilemas with this though so I understand why it is that they have to be put back.
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Most don't but it only takes a couple breaking the rules to 1 give the industry a bad name and 2 cause serious damage. There are some that only do what they should when there are observers on board. Cameras would make it so observers are on board every time. I have met enough who only care about what they can get now or feel they are owed that it could be a real problem if they aren't supervised.
I understand on a gill netter how the fish can be dead when it is brought up but is it really that frequent on a seiner? If the fish is dead, then the fish should be kept no matter the species because otherwise we are just feeding the crabs. You get into all kinds of moral dilemas with this though so I understand why it is that they have to be put back.
Yup, a lot of those types of attitudes in the industry. Especially the older guys. Agree with you RE: the moral dilemma. I'd say about 80% of the fish that were "released" from the seine vessels were either dead or going to die very soon based on the condition they were in and the time they had been out of the water for - considering scale loss, bleeding, being crushed by weight of other fish, etc. While it would make sense to keep the fish that were in fact dead, the line between 'dead' and 'alive' would most likely blur together to a point where fish would be dumped into the holds without being sorted whatsoever. The boys see the brailing and sorting as a waste of time, and if they were allowed to keep 'dead' by catch, then every piece of bycatch would be "dead" if you catch my drift... funny you should mention crabs as well, out by delta port when using the shallow nets, each set kills anywhere from 20 - 100 crabs...
In my own personal experience I found it interesting going from a casual angler, to a full time fishing guide, to an at-sea fishery observer in the past three months... it really put things into perspective.
Before doing this observing work I was aware of how all user groups love to point fingers - the sporties blame the commies and FN for the demise of salmon stocks, the FN blame the commercial guys, sporties and DFO... but what was interesting was hearing one of the commercial guys rant about how logging and the use of pesticides was to blame for the diminishing returns... of course, in addition to the usual, blaming DFO and FN for over harvesting/mismanaging.
It has always been my philosophy that, unless you are part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Unfortunately, the attitude among most people who fish to survive, to earn a living, or for a hobby choose to point the finger at other user groups to make them feel less responsible.
Anyways, sorry to stray off topic, I have a habit of doing that... :o
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I know if the fish had to be dead before they could keep it, most would be "dead". That is why they have to throw it back and good fish goes to waste so that perhaps some of the others that aren't quite dead have a shot.
I wonder if changing conditions wouldn't allow more fish to live. For instance, make them fish with a shorter net. Shorter net means fewer fish per set, less stress on the fish. Of course they would have to get all new nets and stuff which would suck. I just don't know that a great solution exists. No matter what is done, someone feels like they are getting the shaft. I guess the best advice is what my divorce attorney told me, "If either of you leaves happy, I haven't done a good job. I have only done a good job when you both leave equally unhappy." Any possible solution will probably make everybody equally unhappy.
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I wonder if changing conditions wouldn't allow more fish to live. For instance, make them fish with a shorter net. Shorter net means fewer fish per set, less stress on the fish.
I recall seeing a commercial fishery limited to a 6000 fish set.
They can probably catch 10K to 12K in a large net but they were limited to 6K to allow time to sort out the Sockeye and other by-catch.
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I recall seeing a commercial fishery limited to a 6000 fish set.
They can probably catch 10K to 12K in a large net but they were limited to 6K to allow time to sort out the Sockeye and other by-catch.
You are somewhat correct. DFO "requested" skippers to "try" and target sets of 4-6000 fish... That isn't really an issue because most of the sets I observed around deltaport were well less than 4k.
But if there were millions of fish stacked together, that 4-6k suggestion would be very difficult to do even if they wanted to... Although I don't have much experience on seine vessels, perhaps there is another way...
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Also for the record, the coho and chinook by catch average per set for the 2013 fraser commercial pink fishery was very low, sockeye slightly higher but pretty good considering.