Well thought out post hammer.. it all comes down to enforcement and I found it very funny that the DFO was in full visibility this year at Sandheads trying to show all media outlets how they handle threatened " pink returns". Most old river fishermen say same thing that being checked by an officer was about as common as Canadian hockey teams winning a Stanley cup.
Its true I have been checked 3 to 4 times a year by DFO fishing in the ocean. I have also took part in numerous creel surveys at the docs. The steveston DFO office tho is pretty much solely devoted to policing sports fishermen. That being said a busy fishing day on the ocean my consist of 200 boats from Bowen Island all the way down to Sandheads. Its not hard for DFO to check every boat fishing in one day. Also the ocean has something called nature's conservation, When it windy the amount of boats goes down to almost nothing.
I have never been checked by any DFO officer on the river. Despite the fact that they have Chilliwack, Mission and Langley offices for the area. Believe it or not DFO spend most of their time checking natives. A few years ago the natives did a freedom of information request and found out that DFO spent a far more of their time enforcing native fishery then the sport fishery. There is probably only 2 areas where you will find DFO checking. Vedder and Stave. Since enforcement officers don't count streams anymore you wont find them in any remote areas. There are tonnes of small creeks along the north side of the Fraser river that are closed where people go to dip net chinook and coho like whonnock creek. DFO used to spend a lot of time walking these creeks but they do not any more. They still spend a lot of time in the hope canyon, humping hills going after people dip netting.
So yeah I think we all agree that they need to spend more time enforcing the sports fishery.