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[bluesteele]

From the thread BC Interior Rivers BAIT BAN PETITION posted on the  flybc.ca website

http://www.petitiononline.com/baitban1/petition.html

[Trout Slayer]

This bait ban is pathetic.

[BBarley]

Any reasoning as to "why" it is pathetic.

Simply stating something is pathetic doesn't exactly mean much regarding the topic.......

[bluesteele]

Pathetic how?

[chris gadsden]

Bait ban just opens more of a flossing fishery. We met with Mr Penner a few years ago about this and got his support not to entertain this idea again.

[bluesteele]

Bait ban just opens more of a flossing fishery. We met with Mr Penner a few years ago about this and got his support not to entertain this idea again.

YIKES theirs that flossing word again 

Appreciate your input Chris. The way I see it is the Speyfolk will continue to fish as always (me included). The BAIT ban will exclude no one. Gear fishers (me included)
can still use highly effective jewelry all day long. I do not see how eliminating bait will bring about flossing? Goo chuckers will simply chuck hardware.

If you are referring to flossing by fly guys or Fraser style I just dont see it happening. Fraser flossers are meatboys and would have no patience for T-Steel any which way you look at it.
Goo chuckers again will most likely switch to many effective other gear means.

Mr Penner thinks ROR projects are swell as well. 
He will be out of office soon I hope.

[BBarley]

I can't see why there already hasn't been a bait ban on the interior steelhead rivers. I know they put a bait ban on all the tribs to the Skeena come fall when the steelies start showing up.

I've heard in recent years there has been as little as 1000 fish showing up on the Thompson, if that's the case, why is it even open in the first place?

[Gooey]

majority of steelhead I have hooked on the T have been on hardware...big kitimat spoons so I think there are options out there if a bait fishery proved to produce too many fatalities. 

Chris do you really think flossers would move up to the thompson for C&R steelhead?  That would be a very sad day.

[jetboatjim]

name 1 river in BC where a bait ban has helped increase the number of returning steelhead !

[kingpin]

YIKES theirs that flossing word again 

Appreciate your input Chris. The way I see it is the Speyfolk will continue to fish as always (me included). The BAIT ban will exclude no one. Gear fishers (me included)
can still use highly effective jewelry all day long. I do not see how eliminating bait will bring about flossing? Goo chuckers will simply chuck hardware.

If you are referring to flossing by fly guys or Fraser style I just dont see it happening. Fraser flossers are meatboys and would have no patience for T-Steel any which way you look at it.
Goo chuckers again will most likely switch to many effective other gear means.

Mr Penner thinks ROR projects are swell as well. 
He will be out of office soon I hope.

Fish being over played on the spey rod and held for too long for a photo shoot worry me more than bait...ask those nicola pin cushions come november.

Ive hooked a number of steelhead on the T and local rivers and have never had a bleeder...
many of my friends have been fishing it for years with bait and have never had one either...we use adequate gear and get them in faster than a spey rod. The only fish we've ever found dead on the T was a 15lb boot with a barbed GP in its side.

[quill]

THANK GOD someone posted this....I wanted to but wanted to word it in a way that I would get an idea of how people felt about it.

I would be first in line to sign a petition for a bait ban on that river if there was SOLID CONCRETE evidence to support it but there isn't. Just look who started the petition, I personally think it's got nothing to do with the steelhead but more to do with how to find a why to make it a fly only system for him and his buddies. Once you do away with bait then next comes hardware and where does that leave the gear guys? I would be just as happy fishing artificials and hardware but you have to make a stand somewhere and if bait goes hardware will come next. You don't have to fish bait, it's a choice and does it work all the time...no!

Vancouver Island has had a bait ban in effect for years. Has there been any movement towards fly only? No. The truth is the Thompson is not well suited for fly-fishing in many areas and you will never see people pushing for fly only.

This topic was brought up years ago on another forum and it got heated at times and even rivalled flossing topics. If you can find that thread you will see that the guy pushing for this petition is the same guy stirring that pot. I don't know him personally but I have not heard good things and even guys in the same industry that know him say the same and this guy is a director of the Steelhead Society...OUCH!!

I wrote the petition not Niska. While I'm a member of the SSBC I'm not a director.

I know JBJ is part of that group and am glad to see him post on this thread because he fishes both gear and fly which to me carries more weight than someone who is one sided. Don't be mistaken but to me this has everything to do with Fly Elitists trying to have their way.  

How about this.....gear guys give up bait but fly guys are reduced to single hand only with tippet restriction, I wonder how that would fly?

 






  

[quill]

name 1 river in BC where a bait ban has helped increase the number of returning steelhead !

Jim,

I don't fish the Thompson anymore, has that helped to increase the number of returning steelhead? You ask questions you know no one has the answer to and which are designed to further your agenda.

Except for the past 5 years or so I've fished the Thompson since the late 70's with all manner of gear. I know the relative effectiveness of the various gear types, something which is pointed out numerous times in the various Thompson creel surveys. The use of bait is much more effective. And yes I've inadvertently killed fish with all gear types too. That's one reason I don't fish it anymore.

All to often the pro bait crowd trots out the fly only boogeyman. This simply hasn't happened and will not happen, not on the Island or the Skeena, nowhere in the province. The truth is the province is moving away from (apparently) complicated angling regulations with regulation simplification.

Flossing steelhead on the Thompson? You gotta find one first. I don't think so.

Greg
petition author

 

[kingpin]

Iam not aware of any study determining that bait adversely affects steelhead, specifically Thompson river fish. Fish playing skills and adequate gear for the job, and proper handling will ultimately determine what happens to a fish once hooked.

I would welcome a study on the affects of fishing for thompson river fish with BOTH fly and gear...and see how fish respond to being hooked and played with both techniques. Im confident there would little if any difference. When i fish that river im usually using a 2/0 or 3/0 hook..pretty hard to gut hook a fish with that big of a hook

[quill]

I've looked into SARA protection for these fish but because there is political interference in the process no one with the technical background is willing to put in the time, although there was some agreement that the steelhead would qualify.

So, we're stuck with what we've got, or don't have. It seems the best we can do is minimize our impact and encourage others to do the same. 

[Fish Slayer]

If you're that concerned for the T steelhead shutdown the entire fishery, sure bait can cause injuries to fish but so can the houlier than tho spey fishermen. Late into the run when the fish have stacked up I've gotten fish and played them to hand to find spey flies stuck in their bodies. Another thing that I find funny is how spey fishermen think that they own that river and will actually threaten goo chuckers or go smash their vehicles because the guy with goo is fishing a "spey only" run which is not in the regs or rules stating that the run is fly only.