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Eliminate hatchery and make it strictly C&R

4 (4.3%)

Declare it classified waters and make people pay 50-100$ a year if they want to fish it.

15 (16.3%)

Limit daily retention to one salmon (any species), with a ten fish a year maximum, making it mandatory to stop fishing after you bonk your fish.

27 (29.3%)

More area closures (Similar to Boundary Hole)

3 (3.3%)

Leader restriction (3 feet maximum) strictly enforced!

34 (37%)

Other (please explain)

9 (9.8%)

Total Members Voted: 91

[milo]

With all these reports about snagging, and after witnessing other poor fishing practices myself, I started thinking about what could be done to improve the situation on our beautiful LML jewel.
There has to be something that can be done to improve the situation, and make angling pleasurable for all of us.

Above are the things I have come up with, in no particular order of preference. I think all the options have their merits and demerits.
I would like to hear other ideas, and get some feedback on the choices I have offered.

Cheers,

Milo

For the record, I voted for the second option, as I believe making it a classified water would keep a lot of unethical fishers away.

[Sam Salmon]

I voted for the third option because it would allow more anglers to enjoy the river-while I see you point about the classified option in the end the C/V system is just a garbage strewn canal not a jewel of a river like we have so many of up north-so it doesn't deserve that kind of attention.

[milo]

I voted for the third option because it would allow more anglers to enjoy the river-while I see you point about the classified option in the end the C/V system is just a garbage strewn canal not a jewel of a river like we have so many of up north-so it doesn't deserve that kind of attention.

It's a matter of perception, Sam.
While I agree that the lower river is nothing to write home about, I think the Upper River and many parts of the Mid River are simply gorgeous.

[Terry D]

Personally I think it is pointless bringing in more regs.  The good anglers will always fish responsibly and abide by a "code of conduct".  The selfish element will always disregard the rules and do what they want anyway, be it totally illegal or 'within' the rules.  What is really needed is more frequent and effective enforcement by fisheries officers. 

If anything I'd go with closing off small areas which are particularly hazardous to the fish.  If I go fishing and get a decent fish in the first 5 minutes, I don't want that to be my day's fishing over with.

[Banny]

I think all of the options are not necessarily that great.  They all come down to enforcement, until that changes none of those changes will have as big of an impact as they should.  

Unfortunately with the third option the people will bonk a fish and just move to another spot on the river if they really want to keep fishing and not mark the fish.  I am not saying everyone would just blatantly break the law but it will happen, just as it happens with people double dipping in the fraser etc.  

One problem with the new printable licenses is the lack of control of marking springs and steelhead that you retain.  Even if someone recorded their fish, they cold just print another blank license at any time.

Just a few thoughts

Jordan

[BwiBwi]

Vedder is a hatchery enhanced river and it's an urban river it serves it's purpose....  ENTERTAINMENT.  If you feel like C&R and enjoy privacy go to Ashlu, uppoer Squamish, Chehalis Canyon, Coquihalla River, Thomson, Nicolas....  There's lots of C&R rivers around.  Why do you have to mess with Vedder?  Even with it's current retention level the river is still doing okay.  Minds you people fish Vedder cause it's retention is four.  Can you imagine if it's one coho, what kind of impact it will bring to other smaller river system that also has one retention limit?  Such as Coquitlam, Kanaka, Alloette....?  Vedder has a long protected section for salmon rearing and it even has a fertile lake.  If funding is kept up as before, the river can actually handle more hatchery fish.  What I would like to see is river specific conservation stamp, and the funding goes directly to the hatchery program of that particular river.  People who purchased general non-tidal salmon stamp can only fish say, Oct 10 to Dec 31.  And those that purchased river specific conservation stamp gets to fish July 1st to Dec 31st like it is now.

[4x4]

I voted for leader restriction even though limit daily retention is as important to me. We've seen plenty of fish snagged by people short floating this year so a leader restriction will make the intentional snaggers even better snaggers in the future.

At the end of the day you can change the rules all you want but unless they are enforced nothing will change.
Education imo is the key. Everyone should have to take a test before getting a fishing license.

[testo84]

take test before license = best !!

[milo]

Some very good input so far. Keep it coming, guys.

Testo & 4x4, I absolutely agree with the testing before licensing. But that doesn't apply to the Vedder only.
What I had in mind with this poll (and discussion) is regulatory changes specific to the C/V, which would be feasible to implement and enforce.

[Oliver]

Some thoughts:

"Eliminate hatchery and make it strictly C&R"
Well, the hatchery is there for more reasons, I suspect, than simply providing fish for anglers.

"Declare it classified waters and make people pay 50-100$ a year if they want to fish it."
Personally, I'm rather leery of motions like this, which seem to result in a two-tier system--or at the very least a system where your options of where to fish depend on how much money you have.  Though I'm sure the rich ponces that could cough up an extra few hundred for the license wouldn't snag fish--or wait, maybe they still would... (no offense to any rich ponces present:)

The above options, and all others, it seems to me, still depend on DFO doing some enforcement sometime which appears not to be the case at the moment from what I'm hearing.  I would think that the simplest thing to do, if there is a group who are really pissed off about this, is to find the name of an actual person in DFO in this area.  Inform them that this is an area of concern for snaggers and flossers.   They'll probably do their typical bureacratic, yeah yeah, we'll look into it.

Then, have people start doing counts on the river ever day that is possible.  Start sending the DFO dude/ette numbers every day.  Something like "today we had 2 observers for one hour each.  28 fish were seen snagged and retained".  Email the individual DFO officer every day.

What you will create, in a very short amount of time, is a pattern of data that they cannot ignore.  After a few weeks of this occuring, send the DFO person an email saying something like "we have made 35 reports in the last two weeks of fish being snagged and retained to DFO officer X.  This totals over 115 illegally caught and retained fish.  If you are unwilling to address this problem please forward the name of your immediate superior and all email records of our reports to you will be forwarded up the ladder". 

This, I have found in similar past experiences is the only way to give bureacrats a motivation to get moving.  It requires a little bit of collective thought/ coordination, but bureaucracies move on data, and isolated reports won't get the moving.  If nothing is done, then you have a fair amount of rather disturbing data that can be forwarded up the ladder.  Someone will eventually get into sh*t and then something will be done.

My apologies for the rant--I don't really have any experience with the Chilliwack/ Vedder (yet! hoping to change that soon!) but I do have a fair amount of experience with gov. bureacracy

[Herrie]

I voted for the limmited retention basicaly since I think people should only keep what they can consume with their own family. 1 salmon can provide you with many dinners! 10 a year on the vedder alone should give you salmon dinner once a week already.

The downside of the option of course is not being able to conitnue fishing afterwards so I'd opt to addition C&R to this option.

Question is how to enforce it, whatever option and in the current situation as well it all comes down to oversight. There should more enforcement of the rules. Now this costs so I'd welcome an increase of (salmon fishing) license fees just to cover some more enforcement of the rules.

[Nucks]

Excellent topic Milo and I commend your effort in initiating this discussion for the well being of this river. And yes, I too believe this river is the jewel of the LML. Sure it's not like the other rivers mentioned in other posts here but it does deserve recognition purely based on it's proximity to the largest city in BC. I have had the pleasure and enjoyment of fishing this river for 16 years now and I have seen a steady decline in etiquette and ethics; especially over the past 5-7 years.

I like the suggestions that you have offered up but I would like to tweak them a bit. If I was King for a day, this is what I'd like to see in this order:

1) More enforcement and presence on this river and continue the trend of undercover CO's. This is the primary way to turn things around on the Vedder.
2) Stiffer penalties for those that brake the laws and this would include raising the fines, license suspension for the repeat offenders and for the harsher crimes committed
3) Classified Waters- YES! This would discourage the people that are not the "true" fisherman and clean up a lot of this nonsense. I would gladly pay the $100 per year if it would mean I would not see any flossers and snaggers.
4) 1 salmon per day (any species) for all rivers with a maximun of 10 per year (that's plenty of fish for any household), but you ARE allowed to keep fishing once you have bonked your one fish. It is hard to tell people that come from Vancouver to go home once they've caught their 1 fish. That’s not fair. You have to ask yourself what is more important…………..bringing home 4 fish per day or the conservation of a fish species?
5) More closures on the river! Keep the hatchery hole closed and also add the Vedder Crossing and 300 meters downstream to the list. (Only if the above restrictions are not in place. The above suggestions should be able to alleviate some of the problems if not all)
6) Leader restrictions no more than 3 feet on all rivers!

Having a so called test to get your licence would not be that effective in my opinion. Everyone or most everyone knows the rules and the proper way a river should be fished, but they choose not to abide by these. One could pass the test and then revert back to the way they think it should be fished.

Every fisherman should be able to live with these suggestions. If not, you have to reconsider why you are fishing in the first place.

See you in 7 days! 

[bentrod]

If you had a leader restriction, how could you fly fish? 

[Nucks]

Different scenario all together. The problem is where certain individuals fish the Vedder like they do the Fraser. They will fish with an extremely long leader from there weight so the extra line length can come across and sweep the hole pool with the intentions on snagging fish. Some people on the Vedder even use a bouncing betty ball and an 8 foot leader dragging it through the pool.

I have no problem with fly fishers at all as the majority of them are actually "true" fisherman and they are there for the sport. I wish there were more of them.

[Tex]

All good suggestions, Milo, but like you said, each has it's inherent problems.
I chose leader restriction, simply because I think it's the most reasonable way to improve the ethics on the river.
The meat harvesters will always find a way around it, but it will certainly help in the short term.

I don't support making it classified waters.  Although I would glady pay more to fish the C/V system (and honestly I'd pay more for my license in general if I know it's going directly back into the fishery), I don't think it's fair to eliminate those who can't readily afford increased costs.  Suddenly you're making fishing too privatized, in a sense.

I don't think restricting limits would help... it's already a hatchery enhanced river, and those fish are there to be caught.  1 fish would be awfully small, and look at how many people visit the fraser for only 2 fish.

I don't want to see closures on the river either.  People will just concentrate elsewhere.

The number one thing we need though is more enforcement, along with education.  Anything else is just a band-aid.

Good discussion.

Tex