Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: RalphH on March 18, 2025, 10:41:50 AM
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This year the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has predicted what may be a generational run as they forecast a median return of 27 million.
https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/local-news/massive-predicted-return-of-pink-salmon-could-bolster-island-community-7867106
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Watch Almo take credit for this ;)
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This year the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has predicted what may be a generational run as they forecast a median return of 27 million
Based on previous years published values and figures, that could be the highest return ever recorded. Anything over 20M would be historic
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the article indicated estimated harvest rate at such level is 70% which would allow an escapement of 8.1 million which would mean the number entering the Fraser (that's what the estimate is for) would be about the same as 2023 if the commercial sector actually goes out to catch it's allotment.
The estimate is primarily based on sampled outgoing fry from the Fraser. Interesting because as I recall 23/24 was a low water year and many folks (me included) worried spawning success would be negatively impacted. Overall adult returns to Fraser Valley streams wasn't terribly high. The Mission escapement was a little over 9.5 million. Ocean survival and in stream fry survival seem to be the major factors in return rates.
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" Ocean survival and in stream fry survival seem to be the major factors in return rates."
LOL. Do you need a university degree to make a statement like this?
Lots of fry survive. Lots of adults survive. Lots return. Pretty simple math.
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" Ocean survival and in stream fry survival seem to be the major factors in return rates."
LOL. Do you need a university degree to make a statement like this?
Lots of fry survive. Lots of adults survive. Lots return. Pretty simple math.
I am sure you are very good at simple math.
Compare it to the common folk wisdom that it's higher escapement & the higher the better is what matters.
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None of this matters to the sporties above Mission, because we won't get an opening until the Pinks are in their spawning stage. I miss the days when we were allowed to harvest the Pinks in August.
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Also to mention that the access to the Fraser River in the Chilliwack area has been absolutely decimated. The days of salmon fishing with long seasons and tailgate bbqs/campfires at the river with family and friends....gone. Government overreach is a freakin joke.
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are you talking about blocking vehicle access as was done at Gill Road and Ferry Road?
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are you talking about blocking vehicle access as was done at Gill Road and Ferry Road?
Gill Road, Ferry Island, Peg Leg, Jesperson's boat launch, the cement barriers on Balaam road. The list goes on and on and on. There is no access anywhere unless you want to pay at Island 22, or the fishing lodge near Agassiz.
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None of this matters to the sporties above Mission, because we won't get an opening until the Pinks are in their spawning stage. I miss the days when we were allowed to harvest the Pinks in August.
the wheels are in motion to try and get the river opened earlier than in the past. Not sure how successful the groups attempting to do this will be but hopefully they are.
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Gill Road, Ferry Island, Peg Leg, Jesperson's boat launch, the cement barriers on Balaam road. The list goes on and on and on. There is no access anywhere unless you want to pay at Island 22, or the fishing lodge near Agassiz.
Gill, Ferry island as well the access on the north side have blocked access to vehicles due to abuse. There is still foot access. Ferry Island had been turned into a garbage dump. Tranmer Road (Fraser River lodge) access wasn't owned by the lodge but by the farm owner. The access roads has been turned into swamp and mud hole by 4x4 joy riders so he blocked it off not the lodge. He also let the District put in a small parking lot for people who walk along the dike. There is no bar at Tranmer as they remove the gravel as soon as it builds up. They did it again this winter.
So there is no foot access Peg Leg and Jesperson's?
In 2022 when they opened Sockeye CP/CN posted a Railway Police officer at the park for the popular bars because people were running out in front of the trains rather than wait 5 minutes.
Some people are idiots. Blame them.
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I had some good pink fishing 2 years ago during the short opening above the Mission Bridge. River access is easily available if you’re able to walk abit of a distance. The bars are way less crowded now that vehicle access has been restricted. Some of the pinks caught were decent table fare if you wanted to keep a fish. I am a catch and release fisherman so I didn’t keep any. Even caught a few chrome cohos on the pink colored lures I was using. Looking forward to another opening.
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Gill, Ferry island as well the access on the north side have blocked access to vehicles due to abuse. There is still foot access. Ferry Island had been turned into a garbage dump. Tranmer Road (Fraser River lodge) access wasn't owned by the lodge but by the farm owner. The access roads has been turned into swamp and mud hole by 4x4 joy riders so he blocked it off not the lodge. He also let the District put in a small parking lot for people who walk along the dike. There is no bar at Tranmer as they remove the gravel as soon as it builds up. They did it again this winter.
So there is no foot access Peg Leg and Jesperson's?
In 2022 when they opened Sockeye CP/CN posted a Railway Police officer at the park for the popular bars because people were running out in front of the trains rather than wait 5 minutes.
Some people are idiots. Blame them.
I believe laid law was also closed because of to much garbage, and peoples used toilet paper everywhere as well
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To be fair this is not new, My coworker told me when he was in his early teens they use to rally race on herrling island, He told me the abandoned lots of their vehicles their they could not get out.
He's in in late 50's
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Gill, Ferry island as well the access on the north side have blocked access to vehicles due to abuse. There is still foot access. Ferry Island had been turned into a garbage dump. Tranmer Road (Fraser River lodge) access wasn't owned by the lodge but by the farm owner. The access roads has been turned into swamp and mud hole by 4x4 joy riders so he blocked it off not the lodge. He also let the District put in a small parking lot for people who walk along the dike. There is no bar at Tranmer as they remove the gravel as soon as it builds up. They did it again this winter.
So there is no foot access Peg Leg and Jesperson's?
In 2022 when they opened Sockeye CP/CN posted a Railway Police officer at the park for the popular bars because people were running out in front of the trains rather than wait 5 minutes.
Some people are idiots. Blame them.
Typical left wing attitude.
If we actually had law enforcement and government that wasn't lazy, they would go down there and fine the ones that are guilty of abusing the resource.
But what all lazy law enforcement and governments do instead is a blanket shutdown and penalize everyone for the few who are guilty.
Give me one good reason why we need cement barriers all along Balaam road? And don't give me the BS its because some stupid kids drove into the river speeding over the rise at 2am. That's not my problem.
Jesperson's had an awesome boat launch for decades. Completely blocked off now by cement barriers.
As for the scale bar and other bars that people ran in front of trains....again.... not my problem. I don't run in front of trains. Why am I penalized for the stupidity of others?
Peg Leg almost always has cement barriers on the main road. Before the river blew it out the gravel bar even a few years ago, you could park along the entire gravel road stretch....but no longer and there is very little parking on the main road.
Ferry Island and Gill Road? Again....get some law enforcement down there and hand out littering fines, damage fines, etc, etc... These blanket closures and bans because of a few idiots are not fair.
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To be fair this is not new, My coworker told me when he was in his early teens they use to rally race on herrling island, He told me the abandoned lots of their vehicles their they could not get out.
He's in in late 50's
You're right. None of this is new. All the problems mentioned in this thread have been going on since at least the 80s when I started fishing the Fraser River.
What is new is that we have lazier and lazier government and law enforcement that doesn't want to go down there and fine the 'few' so that the rest of us can enjoy the river.
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So there is no foot access Peg Leg and Jesperson's?
You're missing a big part of what I've been saying. People like myself who grew up here....tailgate fishing and campfire/bbqs were a way of life. 99 out of a 100 respected the river. It was an ideal way for family and friends to get together on a Sunday afternoon or evening....and now it's gone. I don't want to carry my bbq and cooler and fishing gear for 2km to get a nice gravel bar.
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Fishing along the Fraser I go back to the 60s. I do recall a lot of the same problems then as what caused vehicle access to be blocked. One thing that has changed is that regular people won't put up with it anymore and demanded something be done. Personally I didn't enjoy fishing in a parking lot or the loud music or people riding their screaming dirt bikes back and forth for hours. Some people felt otherwise. A bigger loss is when all access was cut off altogether and that's happened as well.
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the wheels are in motion to try and get the river opened earlier than in the past. Not sure how successful the groups attempting to do this will be but hopefully they are.
I dont know all the backroom discussions that must go into an opening, but it seems that the returns have either fell short of the escapement goals or barely met them for at least 10 years, so perhaps the later openings were to be conservative and ensure the goals were met. Maybe with a large historic return, there's more hope or earlier/wider openings if meeting the target is not in question...
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One can go through the PSC annual reports to see what the final run size estimates were and the Mission escapement. Only 2015 ( 5m )and 2017 (3.4 m) were below the usual escapement target of 6 million. The highest recorded run size was 2003 with 25 million so the estimate for this year is about the same. the 2023 escapement was 9.5 million.
https://www.psc.org/publications/annual-reports/fraser-river-panel/
Best I know the minimum escapement for conservation is 3 million. The max for optimal spawning success is 8 million There have been years (70s and early 80s I believe) where the return was well below 3 million.
Not sure that any discussions about openings above Mission are related to the pink salmon forecast. They have been going on for some time as there have been years where late summer chinook returns have been more than sufficient to support a targeted sport fishery. A pink opening this will lead to a floss fishery with potential impacts on other species.
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the wheels are in motion to try and get the river opened earlier than in the past. Not sure how successful the groups attempting to do this will be but hopefully they are.
Unfortunately, we hear that song and dance every season. The DFO hasn't given the sporties anything other than lip service since at least the 90s. I don't expect it to change anytime soon.
I dont know all the backroom discussions that must go into an opening, but it seems that the returns have either fell short of the escapement goals or barely met them for at least 10 years, so perhaps the later openings were to be conservative and ensure the goals were met. Maybe with a large historic return, there's more hope or earlier/wider openings if meeting the target is not in question...
Regardless of any reason for it, the problem with later openings is that we are left with mostly inedible fish.
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A pink opening this will lead to a floss fishery with potential impacts on other species.
Funny how you never mention that FN Gill nets (which will be out there) do 100x worse bycatch damage than a little bit of flossing.
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Looking back through 2021 and 2023 for FN and general commercial fisheries there were few to no openings for pinks that authorized use of gill or drift nets.FN openings allowed Beach seines. seines, dip nets, gaffs, hook and line etc - yes but not gill nets. Two factors to explain this - low sockeye numbers and the IFS window.
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Looking back through 2021 and 2023 for FN and general commercial fisheries there were few to no openings for pinks that authorized use of gill or drift nets.FN openings allowed Beach seines. seines, dip nets, gaffs, hook and line etc - yes but not gill nets. Two factors to explain this - low sockeye numbers and the IFS window.
And yet Bar Fishing (which is as selective as fishing gets) for Chinook (numbers were more than decent) was completely banned (as well as before the IFS window). You still don't get it......
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Looking back through 2021 and 2023 for FN and general commercial fisheries there were few to no openings for pinks that authorized use of gill or drift nets.FN openings allowed Beach seines. seines, dip nets, gaffs, hook and line etc - yes but not gill nets. Two factors to explain this - low sockeye numbers and the IFS window.
And yet somehow, there were still piles of unwanted pinks dumped all over the gravel bars (dozens of pictures for proof were shown to the public) to rot in the sun. Why did that happen? I'm thinking only the nicer salmon species were actually being kept. IE. Coho, Chinook, and Sockeye.
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And yet Bar Fishing (which is as selective as fishing gets) for Chinook (numbers were more than decent) was completely banned (as well as before the IFS window). You still don't get it......
oh I get it Robert, it's just that you don't get I get it simply because I don't talk or think like you.
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In river pink fishery is an egg fishery. Yes it is terribly wasteful.
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oh I get it Robert, it's just that you don't get I get it simply because I don't talk or think like you.
No, I think like a sporty and someone who desires equality and fairness among the different demographics....I think for myself.
You think how you are told to think. Whatever the TV or other MSM tells you. There is a big difference.
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You have no idea what I think or how I think.
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There are lots of gill net / set nets on the Fraser back channels when there are salmon in the rivers. Whether there is an opening or no opening. I see them every year from the mouth of the Vedder up to Hope. Its just the way it is. Also talk to a couple of old timers that bar fish for springs every year in out of the way areas. Keeps them happy and active and get fish for the year.
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There are lots of gill net / set nets on the Fraser back channels when there are salmon in the rivers. Whether there is an opening or no opening. I see them every year from the mouth of the Vedder up to Hope. Its just the way it is. Also talk to a couple of old timers that bar fish for springs every year in out of the way areas. Keeps them happy and active and get fish for the year.
Ralph believes that our FN people are all law abiding citizens that only take what they are allowed. He also believes the chiefs of each band always keep their FN fishermen in line.
The fact remains that even though our government discriminates by race who gets to fish and who doesn't, and also that FN people gets first crack at the salmon.....the natives still... even with being first in everything (in regards to salmon harvest).....break the law and take fish (and by unlawful methods) whenever they want according to what they see as right or wrong.
Ralph has no issues with any of that as he has displayed in his posts for over 2 decades now.
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I have never said any of these things.
I don't understand what your issue is. I posted information about the pre-season pink salmon forecast and you've gone off on a tirade.
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I diagnose a chronic case of RDS (Ralph Derangement Syndrome)
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Does that mean we'll have an opening for the Squamish Pinks this year? Has the Spit removal helped the pinks for this year's return?
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DFO doesn't do a forecast for the Squamish system so it doesn't tell us anything about what that return may be like,
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I remember the 2011 and 2013 Pinks at the Squamish was pretty decent. Then it started a slow down hill decline after that. Hopefully it will surpass those numbers but who knows.
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Does that mean we'll have an opening for the Squamish Pinks this year? Has the Spit removal helped the pinks for this year's return?
Good point about the spit... 300m was removed in 2022 and the last 550m section was removed in early 2023 which would directly benefit the out-migrating pink fry in spring 2024 from the 2023 brood year...the very fish that we will be seeing this summer.
From what I read, chinook salmon are the targeted species to enhance with the berm removal but it will be interesting to see if other species benefit as well, particularly chum and pink that don't spend as long in freshwater as chinook and coho.
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Fall Highwater events greatly harm Squamish system pink returns. If there was a gravel moving event in the fall after the spawn happened there is a good chance the return will be greatly affected
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I want to reiterate the forecast is based on outbound fry sampling in the Fraser watershed. It doesn't say anything about ocean survival over the last year +. If you look at info on past forecast and returns you'll see the match of pre-season forecast to actual returns estimated in season and postseason are highly variable. Last word is best I know DFO does not do any pre-season estimate other than the Fraser on the south coast.
I think there is some work done locally in Squamish by people associated with the Squamish Nation. Member BKK who hasn't posted in a while would sometimes offer some info on that. There was one major high water even on the Squamish around the Feb '24. Overall people who have fished that area in 23 and 21 reported fishing was pretty good though there was no retention in river. Reports I heard Furry Creek was very spotty and fish numbers arrived later than in previous high return years.
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https://globalnews.ca/news/8090037/gill-bar-fish-habitat/
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https://globalnews.ca/news/8090037/gill-bar-fish-habitat/
Are people still accessing the bar with their vehicles? I thought there were barriers to prevent that?
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https://globalnews.ca/news/8090037/gill-bar-fish-habitat/
seems to be an article from 2021. Something current might be better to post
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Are people still accessing the bar with their vehicles? I thought there were barriers to prevent that?
As I complained about earlier, there is literally no full public vehicle access to the river shore between Mission and Hope anymore.
The powers to be are too lazy to go after the problem people, so everyone gets penalized instead with blanket bans.
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Just wait until they ban wading. ;D
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Wading probably does more damage than a lot of people think ,I agree .
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seems to be an article from 2021. Something current might be better to post
I was just making the point of what most likely led to closure going back a few years . This was a great place to go to fish and relax with family and friends bar fishing or fly fishing salmon . Got to the point where you had to keep the small kids on a leash to prevent getting killed by some no brains running them over in there dune buggy or jacked up 4x4 . I was there one time a guy rolled the 4x4 with some young folks in the box thinking they were having a great ole time but paid the price . Burning pallets was also stupid . A young kid I seen impale his foot into a nail ,through the kids shoe from one of those burnt pallets . If you want to go out now ,you will have to go out from the Harrison River .
I see the same thing going to happen at Stave flats . All the crap leaching into Stave lake and to through Hayward lake from radiators burnt tranny oils , motor oils etc etc .
Sorry , just ranting here :o ,. Hope the Pink season opens early enough to please everyone .
Peace ;)