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Sporting

20 (29%)

Harvest for any species of salmon

5 (7.2%)

Snagging

19 (27.5%)

Harvest but only for Sockeye

17 (24.6%)

Dont care I'll do what ever is in the regs that gives me the best chance to catch a fish regardless if it bites or not.

8 (11.6%)

Total Members Voted: 66

[Gooey]

Right rieber, thats assuming the stock doesnt collapse like it did on the east coast!  And while I have no imperical  data/ statistics, Rick is right, until the large scale poaching (and we all know what that means) is stopped, the stocks will be threatened.  After all it wasnt a bunch of sporties with rods and hand lines that decimated the cod stocks on the east coast.

[chris gadsden]

Excellent and well thought out material you have written Rodney.

When the 40 page document on fishing ethics, that is now in its final draft before being released to the public and to be posted on this and other web sites you will see that FOC does care. A number of FOC and MOE staff along with concerned anglers spent a number of meetings putting it together.

I certainly am very pleased with what accomplished by all that attended.

[buck]

As we all know, bbing is a very effective technique to harvest fish. There seems to be lots of concern for sockeye stocks being intercepted by native ,sport and commercial fisheries. However, I have heard little concern for the number of chinook that are being taken by all user groups. Most chinook runs in the upper Fraser are in the hundreds, not thousands. From the number of chinook that I have observed being caught by bbing I feel that we are having a high impact on these fish and that it want be long before this fishery will be closed .
 As far as the native fishery is concerned they have first dibs at the fish by law . We may not like it but get over it.
I suggest that everyone should go out flossing this weekend and then DFO can close the fishery down so that we don't have to debate this issue forever.

[Rodney]

[All Tangled Up]

As far as the native fishery is concerned they have first dibs at the fish by law . We may not like it but get over it.

As far as the DFO is concerned, bottom bouncing wasn't pinpointed as the selctive technique they are discouraging. You also may not like this, but GET OVER IT!

[chris gadsden]

As far as the native fishery is concerned they have first dibs at the fish by law . We may not like it but get over it.

As far as the DFO is concerned, bottom bouncing wasn't pinpointed as the selctive technique they are discouraging. You also may not like this, but GET OVER IT!

I respect your opinion on this issue but I believe most anglers know what type of fishing that is requested not to do. They, FOC are trying to work with the recreational fishers as much as possible without be heavy handed.

But as Buck has stated very clearly if the request is not adhered too you and the rest of us will be off the river salmon fishing just like what happened in the 1980's. Then we had to work long and hard to get it back.

I and I feel many others will not be prepared to do so once again just because some people will not fish selectively when a resonable request has been made and that of course means refrain from bottom bouncing, flossing or putting it bluntly snagging as many people call it, for the next few weeks.

[2:40]

Anyone who thinks a snag fishery is selective is a little confused.

Anyone who thinks that our chinooks are NOT taking a beating from this should realize that many runs number very few fish. Many of these runs were typically out of reach in the past due to the typical high water and dirty conditions experienced during the early summer. Not anymore as snagging knows no limitations.

While Im very concerned about nets and their impact, I am also not going to do what I want just because my impact might be a little less. That's not very mature nor does it show any respect to the resource.

I hope everyone does THEIR part and fishes a biting method or stays off the river. Sadly, Im at the point where I almost agree with Buck, let's get it shut down so we dont have to have this any more. But what does that solve? Stubborness and greed may make it so there is ZERO opportunity when there was at least SOME before. 

[Geff_t]

  I totally agree with Buck on the concern of the chinook numbers. So if we all comply with what DFO is trying to say( stop bb'ing for now) then we will have an extra how many people bar fishing for a chinook run that is lower then the sockeye run that they don't want you to catch. Sounds pretty ethical to me.

[Steelhawk]

I am with Big Steel on this so called selective method thing. At this early season, there are not a lot of so called newbies out there. Catching a spring is not that easy for a newbie, and he will lose tons of gears while most of his trips are skunked. Most of the guys out there now are the top gun bbers who know how to avoid socs, like BS and his friends. These guys can map out the river bottom by their betties and zeroing in only springy water. Last year, I did not catch one soc until sockeye opened, nor did I see enough accidental catch to be a concern by the grand scale of stock management. In fact we were the guys guarding any newbies who mishandled a soc, or preventing a soc from being bonked by an ignorant newbie. About selectivity, it is the anglers who will selectively avoid socs and these early season bbers do a good job at it. There was not one case of dead soc floating down during early season on my days at the bars. Yes, there were some later in the season, but who can say for sure that those dead socs were killed by bbers and not bar fishers or net suffocation or even warm water.    Why are the bbers made such a scape goat in the grand scheme of stock management?  If this is not a political ploy, then I don't know what is.

Therere is simply no statistical justification to stop BBing for those fishers who prefer and excel to take springs this way. I am afraid that DFO is bowing to the pressure and relentless lobbying year after year, by the minority but vocal and well connected bar fishers to shut the bbers down. If that happens, I think BBers who are the majority will be out in full force in defiance, and then DFO will shut down the Fraser. When that happens, don't just point finger at the bbers. DFO has no scientific nor statistical proof that the bbers can damage fish stock. They know the real threat - native drift nets and endless poaching. If conservation is the problem, they should shut all parties down, not just bbers. I will bb this weekend because I know I will not hook any soc, because those of us who know will fish very selectively and only in selective water - zero soc. Can a bar fisher be so sure when it is the spin & glow who is doing the fishing?    Bar rigs are usually thown not far out in the river, and they are right in the sockeye travel lane. Most bbers know to retrieve much earlier to avoid drifting into close shore water where socs are found, and there are very few of them in this early season for sockeye. In fact some year, you don't see enough sockeye even when sockeye opened in first week of August.

By the way, for the bar fishers, if only 30% of bbers are converted to your art, then the limited private bar fishing space that you are enjoying now will be gone. Don't  complain that you show up at first light and still find no space to fish, or tons of guys elbowing into your peaceful and quiet world of bar fishing. There are simply not that many good bars for the generous space each bar rod needs.

[chris gadsden]

To answer some of these post above, short and to the point.

Most if not all of us did this type of fishing at one time or another so we are familar with the method.

However once we discovered what we were doing and the fish were not biting we knew we were snagging them. Snagging is illegal so that is one of the reasons we stopped doing this as we have no interest in catching a fish that is not biting.

More people are seeing this all the time and are becoming concerned with the effect this is having on chinook stocks as some members have posted. There of course are other consequences as well that have been posted many times, no need to post them again.

Going fishing now and I will leave the topic for others for the day and hope to post "The Journal " on the day's fishing outcome with The Master and Rodney.

[nosey]

I talked to one fisherman last year that was fishing at Spagetti last year before sockeye opened and he told me he landed 5 sockeye in 7 casts bbing while "selectively" fishing for springs. He said the place was plugged with boats and when the sockeye moved in everyone was hitting them, I guess nobody there was a good enough bottom bouncer to TARGET springs, this is the kind of thing the fisheries is trying to stop, unfortunately they cannot tell just to look at you that you are the one in a thousand ace fishermen that can pull your hook through a school of sockeye and avoid hooking any, while still being efective on the springs maybe if you can selectively pick your species while snagging you should get a tee shirt or badge that somehow identifies you and it would make the dfo's job so much easier. Something with big printing on it so it so it could be read from their observation plane would be good, it could identify you with wording such as I'm The One, or maybe Superfisher, or anything to separate you from all those other snaggers that just  haven't developed the ability to pull their hooks away from the sockeye and still nail the springs.

[chris gadsden]

I talked to one fisherman last year that was fishing at Spagetti last year before sockeye opened and he told me he landed 5 sockeye in 7 casts bbing while "selectively" fishing for springs. He said the place was plugged with boats and when the sockeye moved in everyone was hitting them, I guess nobody there was a good enough bottom bouncer to TARGET springs, this is the kind of thing the fisheries is trying to stop, unfortunately they cannot tell just to look at you that you are the one in a thousand ace fishermen that can pull your hook through a school of sockeye and avoid hooking any, while still being efective on the springs maybe if you can selectively pick your species while snagging you should get a tee shirt or badge that somehow identifies you and it would make the dfo's job so much easier. Something with big printing on it so it so it could be read from their observation plane would be good, it could identify you with wording such as I'm The One, or maybe Superfisher, or anything to separate you from all those other snaggers that just  haven't developed the ability to pull their hooks away from the sockeye and still nail the springs.

[Tee]

I talked to one fisherman last year that was fishing at Spagetti last year before sockeye opened and he told me he landed 5 sockeye in 7 casts bbing while "selectively" fishing for springs. He said the place was plugged with boats and when the sockeye moved in everyone was hitting them, I guess nobody there was a good enough bottom bouncer to TARGET springs, this is the kind of thing the fisheries is trying to stop, unfortunately they cannot tell just to look at you that you are the one in a thousand ace fishermen that can pull your hook through a school of sockeye and avoid hooking any, while still being efective on the springs maybe if you can selectively pick your species while snagging you should get a tee shirt or badge that somehow identifies you and it would make the dfo's job so much easier. Something with big printing on it so it so it could be read from their observation plane would be good, it could identify you with wording such as I'm The One, or maybe Superfisher, or anything to separate you from all those other snaggers that just  haven't developed the ability to pull their hooks away from the sockeye and still nail the springs.

I think this situation would also apply to barfishing. In other words, if there are bar rods in the pathway of sockeyes, there will be some sockeyes intercepted. To me, I do not think there has been a proven method not to catch sockeyes.

[Nicole]

I talked to one fisherman last year that was fishing at Spagetti last year before sockeye opened and he told me he landed 5 sockeye in 7 casts bbing while "selectively" fishing for springs. He said the place was plugged with boats and when the sockeye moved in everyone was hitting them, I guess nobody there was a good enough bottom bouncer to TARGET springs, this is the kind of thing the fisheries is trying to stop, unfortunately they cannot tell just to look at you that you are the one in a thousand ace fishermen that can pull your hook through a school of sockeye and avoid hooking any, while still being efective on the springs maybe if you can selectively pick your species while snagging you should get a tee shirt or badge that somehow identifies you and it would make the dfo's job so much easier. Something with big printing on it so it so it could be read from their observation plane would be good, it could identify you with wording such as I'm The One, or maybe Superfisher, or anything to separate you from all those other snaggers that just  haven't developed the ability to pull their hooks away from the sockeye and still nail the springs.

LOL! I could see the badge now, with a poorly drawn stick figure, a rod, a handfull of betties, and oodles of line going around and around the outside edge of the whole mess... Superfisher would be written in some sort of children's typeface.

LOL!
Nicole

[2:40]

Steelhawk, pretty impressive that there are some who can or seem to think they can avoid sockeye while using a snagging method of angling. I think DFO is 100% in the right to be concerned. Snagging is illegal for many reasons; management concerns being one of them. We're not yet at the point where this method can be defined in regulations so that's why they can only make requests in regards to it. But they do have a way to deal with this, but it will come at a cost of total closure to salmon fishing during certain periods.

So you and some others might think they can snag fish selectively, but how can you prove it? As DFO does their patrols and sees guys "bottom bouncing" they will correctly label it as snagging but deal with it from the perspective of anglers acting in non-compliance with their requests. It doesnt take a scientist to watch the snagging show to see that there are impacts. Of course there are nets and poachers but I dont believe that it gives anglers the right to do what they please in light of it. If the world operated on these grounds it would be pretty scary.

If more guys started to bar fish and take up room, I wouldnt mind. Speak for yourself in regards to what you consider crowding or lack of available areas to fish!   I oppose snagging, but I dont oppose sharing the fishery at all and wouldnt be "upset" if someone fished "my" bar.

Lastly, Ive bar fished for over 20 years and have caught probably a half dozen sockeye in this time. Ask any bar fisher and they'll have similar numbers. If sockeye bit bar rods well, why would guys have to snag for them?? The few that are caught are quickly beached and released as the gear is set up for larger springs which make beaching a smaller fish quick and easy. Can some guy fishing a 20' leader out his 14' boat say the same thing as he tries to reach the fish that dangles out of reach? I dont mean to be rude, Im just stating the facts that are easy to see.

On a personal note, I think it's too bad that guys think they have the ability and an apparent pride in the fact that they have the skill and knowledge to snag fish 'selectively'.

What happened to looking up to skilled anglers who can get the fish to bite no matter what odds were against the angler.  

P.S.
  Just saw some posts while I was writing. Thanks for the laugh Nicole and Nosey!

Tee, have you ever barfished? You're right, there isnt 100% avoidance of sockeye, but even in prime conditions, they are hard to catch. In muddy water it is hard enough to catch a spring never mind a sockeye. Dont drag bar fishing into it. DFO is rightfully targeting snagging, not bar fishing. If things progressed where bar fishing was an issue, they'd make a request on that as well and I would abide by it.