It shocks me that we should expect anything else out of a fishery like the fraser.
seriously, I spent a long time learning how to fish fresh water salomon, learning about their life cylce, species identification, where they lie in a river, what makes em hit, making bait, even learning what regs were in place for a specific river...I doubt most of that is lost on the average fraser river flosser.
DFO should just have a snag fishery on the fraser...seriously why release a fish thats been injured by a hook. Alaska has a "sustanence fishery" under that special licence residence can boat down the river with their net in the water and scoop socks right out of the water...no need for a rod even. I am being quite seriosu when I say I would like to see the fraser river sockeye fishery distanced from what we call "sport fishing". I personally would support a separate tag or liscence, I would recommend that one person be given a set quota for the year and be able to fill that quota in one day if possible (reduce traffic), i personally would pay $50-$100 (like a sturgeon or classified waters tag) to be able to go out an bag an annual limit of 10+ sockey in a single trip. DFO could call flossing what it is: targetted snagging but allow it for the fraser fishery...I think it makes a lot of sense and then you also distance that fishery from any others too, reducing the impact of flossing on other rivers.
PS -I snorkelled the cable pool yesterday, pulled out probably 300 yards of line, 8 bouncing betties and a bunch of snaggers gear. I have done this for several years and I have never seen so much illegal gear in the water....its been getting worse year after year
