There will be more greed and illegal poaching with massive nets, and that does not help the already depleted Fraser sockeyes. Hope DFO will put conservation as their top mandate and not cave in to native demands when stocks are endangered. Last year, after we had been told to stop after only 5 days of opening, the natives were allowed to fish weeks after weeks catching hundreds of thousands of sockeyes with drift nets in a low cycle year. Why? Why not just have natives fish with traditional gears to limit the kill? Why do natives need that much fish to eat? You & I know the answers. Friends & neighbours were all bragging the deal they got from some secret native source and kind of joked why I had to sweat & expense so much gas & time to catch only 2 per day. They had more socs in their freezer than my meager catch. LOL.
Besides, they said they could pick the bigger ones for their $, where as we caught mostly smallies small enough to escape with net marks, and that is when you are lucky to catch something. Quite a few fishing comrades were skunked last year. So, the big question for some of them this year is -To fish or not to fish.... (Shakespere should have written this one too)
Perhaps DFO & the natives will answer this one for us this year - a total closure to sporties. But will DFO risk the loss of the license revenue??? Any body can give an educated guess?