During the time of Harcourt & Moe Shiota, they tried to cut funding on lake stocking especially hatchery steelhead. That would mean people would be tempted to poach for wild steelhead and that would spell the doom of wild steelies across the Province, as well as lakes & streams would be fished out without fish replenishment. That would be disastrous. These politicians only looked at $$$ instead of the costs to fish stocks and to people's way of life.
I personally wrote to them both explaining that they would be the ones remembered for killing the wild steelhead, as well as young folks across the province losing interest in a good hobby like fishing if there is nothing to fish, which may then lead them into bad hobbies such as drugs, gangs, womanizing and boosts and would be a much more expensive social problems to fix. The 300K they tried to cut/save would end up costing them millions. I also made copies of petition forms at local tackle stores for fishers to sign up for our politicians to see and hear the uproar. Well, many other concerned fishermen joined in the fight. The politicians changed course. I personally receieved a letter from Shiota that he thanks us for voicing the opinion, and they realized the possible damage of their actions. Funding cut was halted. Future fishery was not harmed. I am a BBer on the Fraser and don't you think for a minute that BBers are sitting around doing nothing when it counts. The so called me-right-you-wrong or holier-than-thou attitude just because you bf or you attend meetings, join a club and others do not has got to change. Other people can choose to do this like you, or do some of it like writing letters. That does not mean they don't care.
Consistently putting pressures on people who do not share your idea about fishing and what makes ethical fishing is just not going to unite the fishermen brotherhood. Fish are caught by so many different effective ways all over the world, even in this country, and people of this province come from so many diversed ethnic and national backgrounds. Trying to impose on others your narrow view about fishing ethics applicable to yourself in a public media, armed with dirty terms like snagger, snagging, meat fishermen, is to me like spreading hate among fishermen brotherhood. Educating is one thing, shaming, bashing and trashing is a dirty technique used by PETA and organizations like that. The mere fact that there is hardly any fishing reports from the bb bars, or the lack of people daring to claim they bb is a proof that people are avoiding the shaming and bashing game which has been going on here. BBing is a legitimate fishing method on the Fraser accepted by DFO (as no one has been ticketed) and choosing to bounce or not is entirely up to the individual's unfretted freedom of choice in this plural society of ours. Leave people alone to fish in peace as long as they fish legally. DFO can always impose a leader lenght restriction on the smaller systems if they wish to. Leave the legal and legitimate issue of fishing to the governing body of fishing and speak no evils against your fishing brothers if they are not breaking any laws. Just my 2 cents on the subject.
Author
Topic: Fraser River sockeye salmon C&R study (Read 93571 times)