I finally took the time to listen to Jill Bennet's interview with Bob Hooten.
He knows as well as most of the long term sport fishermen that have fished the Fraser and it's tribs what the issues are surrounding the plight of the interior Steelhead population.
we have to get the gill nets out of the river! I really think they should be banned and encourage the used of communal fish wheels which can selectively harvest target species.
I would even be okay with our government buying the fish wheels and setting them up for the various first nations groups.
however I would want to see a qualified DFO employee stationed on every fish wheel to track numbers of target species caught and insure all non-target species all released in a safe manner.
I believe this is the only way we can allow First Nations to continue harvesting salmon on the Fraser River and have any chance of saving the remnants of the iconic Thompson Steelhead and other interior steelhead runs.
I know beach seining has been used in the past but without proper monitoring we have all seen how disastrous this can turn out.
All lot of people bitch and whine about how our endangered Fraser fish runs are getting wiped out but I would rather use my energy on coming up with solutions.