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[Rodney]

That run and the ones nearby have been popular throughout this season. I doubt the video changed much of that.

[spoiler]

the whole river has been busier this year than I have ever seen it!
I started fishing the Chilliwack / Vedder river system in 1967 and have actively fished every year since.
I have to say that in all my time out there I have never seen this many people fishing.
I'm assuming that because a lot of people were not working due to covid that has added to the crowds but social media has definitely impacted to pressure on the system.
Unfortunately with the crowds has come a huge increase of illegal activities. I have never seen so much intentional snagging, flossing, dipping, killing wild fish and over limits etc.
Sadly our government has cut funding for fisheries enforcement so badly that it's almost non-existent.
the poachers know this and have blatantly done whatever they want to in order to fill their freezers with fish.
the whole general mentality out there seems to be to kill as many fish as possible by whatever means.
I can honestly say that of all my years fishing the Chilliwack / Vedder system this year I went out the least.
I couldn't handle the crowds and was also worried I would lose my temper and end up in a confrontation.
In a dream world if we could have put more boots on the ground for enforcement, the amount of tickets that would have been issued would have more than paid for their wages.
 

[CohoJake]

the whole river has been busier this year than I have ever seen it!
I started fishing the Chilliwack / Vedder river system in 1967 and have actively fished every year since.
I have to say that in all my time out there I have never seen this many people fishing.
I'm assuming that because a lot of people were not working due to covid that has added to the crowds but social media has definitely impacted to pressure on the system.
Unfortunately with the crowds has come a huge increase of illegal activities. I have never seen so much intentional snagging, flossing, dipping, killing wild fish and over limits etc.
Sadly our government has cut funding for fisheries enforcement so badly that it's almost non-existent.
the poachers know this and have blatantly done whatever they want to in order to fill their freezers with fish.
the whole general mentality out there seems to be to kill as many fish as possible by whatever means.
I can honestly say that of all my years fishing the Chilliwack / Vedder system this year I went out the least.
I couldn't handle the crowds and was also worried I would lose my temper and end up in a confrontation.
In a dream world if we could have put more boots on the ground for enforcement, the amount of tickets that would have been issued would have more than paid for their wages.

Unfortunately it was a good return as well this year, so people will be encouraged to continue.  Being stuck south of the border this year, I spent my fall fishing the Cascade, Skagit and Nooksack rivers.  It was a good season for coho for me, but everyone said the same thing on every system I fished - they had never seen so many people fishing this river, ever.  Even places as remote as Montana are being overfished during COVID.  See this article:"Visitation increases induced by Covid-19 are pushing Montana’s state parks—already struggling with insufficient staff, limited infrastructure, and growing shoulder season attendance—to their breaking point." http://fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/pdf/2020/Overwhelmed.pdf

The market for used boats, RVs and campers, and full sized trucks to pull them has gone through the roof.  People are craving a way to get away and do something, and fishing was an achievable way to do that for many people. If only we had a year of miserable returns, small fish, and poor conditions to discourage people.  Unfortunately it was the opposite.  The masses have now tasted blood, and they want more.

Hopefully this increase in interest will help drive an increase in attention to issues like public access and funding for hatcheries  - we need an increased supply to meet the demand.  BTW has anyone seen numbers on fishing license sales this year?  Maybe that data won't be available until the end of the license year, but I'd be curious to know how much of an increase in licenses we are going to see.

[wildmanyeah]

According to a a presentation I just watched by the pacific salmon foundations salmon stamp sales are way down and mostly because of the loss revenue from out of province and country sales.

[bobby b]

the whole river has been busier this year than I have ever seen it!
I started fishing the Chilliwack / Vedder river system in 1967 and have actively fished every year since.
I have to say that in all my time out there I have never seen this many people fishing.
I'm assuming that because a lot of people were not working due to covid that has added to the crowds but social media has definitely impacted to pressure on the system.
Unfortunately with the crowds has come a huge increase of illegal activities. I have never seen so much intentional snagging, flossing, dipping, killing wild fish and over limits etc.
Sadly our government has cut funding for fisheries enforcement so badly that it's almost non-existent.
the poachers know this and have blatantly done whatever they want to in order to fill their freezers with fish.
the whole general mentality out there seems to be to kill as many fish as possible by whatever means.
I can honestly say that of all my years fishing the Chilliwack / Vedder system this year I went out the least.
I couldn't handle the crowds and was also worried I would lose my temper and end up in a confrontation.
In a dream world if we could have put more boots on the ground for enforcement, the amount of tickets that would have been issued would have more than paid for their wages.

Well...there is always "the other side of the coin".
Yes, it was busy...but I still went out a lot. It wasn't too hard to find fishable areas that were not crowded, unlike some easy access spots. However, I saw lots of CO's and enforcement of violations. It was, in my view, a year when I have seen the most Fisheries presence and enforcement.

 Don't get me wrong, I agree that more CO's would benefit the resource.
The amount of, shall we say, unethical practices witnessed is understandably maddening. Ive seen a few tempers flare.

[Rodney]

Where are people seeing all these unethical practices? I'm curious because honestly my feeling is that overall ethics have progressively gotten better in the past ten years. More and more people are fishing properly, and doing quite good actually. Yeah it gets crowded, but take the canal for example earlier in the season, there were mornings when I could see 50+ people in a line all float fishing with bait and catching fish legally. Perhaps I am just not visiting the really busy spots where violations are more common.

[DanL]

I have seen chum return projections, in season estimates, etc but do they ever break it down on a per system basis? and any estimate of what the recreational chum harvest is?

Just my own anecdotal observations. The Vedder chum run appeared strong, and though I wasnt really targetting them, I was getting/seeing good numbers much earlier than historically.

Norrish system also seems to have a decent run from the few times I saw.

I didnt go to Stave very much but that run didnt seem as good this year. The 4-5 times I looked at the spawning channel, there were far fewer chum present than I would have expected for those dates.

Where are people seeing all these unethical practices?  ... Perhaps I am just not visiting the really busy spots where violations are more common.

Just my observations but the worst activity seems more widespread on other rivers. Where on the vedder there are hotspots, where its not so obvious unless you are right there...