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[Damien]

There are lots of excellent fisheries around this province beside the Fraser to enjoy in the summer. My suggestion to all is to take advantage of those.

x2

This summer, I've been to the Kamloops area twice and hit some massive trough, went up island and tagged some beauty cutties, hit Alouette for kokanee and bulls, the local chuck etc.

Expand your horizons...

[Rieber]

I understand that, which is why I asked, so they could still bounce with a short leader then? Success rate low or not people would be out there bouncing still if 18 inches could still work. Sounds to me like there would have to somehow be a bar fishing only regulation implemented, not just leader restriction.

Clearly you never fished slack waters around Gill Rd. 18" leader is just fine just get that down with 1-1.5" pencil lead or small betty 4-5' under a foam float. Cast to the edge of the current, drag it in a foot or so and let it drift through the school. Sockeye come in close. Green wool and watermelon corkie makes you feel like you're actually luring them to bite - you're not - it's just another method for sockeye, picks or chum. Odds go way down for Springs but if the fish are there you can get them.

Leader length doesn't matter - there is no more salmon - no more open seasons - no use fighting about flossing anymore.

I haven't figured out how to floss Mill Lake yet - too many weeds in the way.

[CohoJake]

For what it's worth, here's my limit of Skagit River (US) sockeye I caught in July in about an hour, BAR FISHING with a spin-n-glo and shrimp:



Even bar fishing isn't zero impact on sockeye, and I THINK the early season fish are especially susceptible, as they are so long from spawning that they feed more on their way to the spawning grounds.  Also, I have seen people flossing with jigs that sit stationary on the river bottom - one element of bar fishing, yet clearly not ethical fishing.  There is no easy way to effectively restrict technique that there will be no impact on the low sockeye stocks (or Thompson steelhead and interior coho). 

Back in the early 1990s when the sockeye sport fishery first opened on the Fraser, everyone was bottom bouncing with a 2-3 ft leader, just like they had done for pinks for years. I remember being at Island 22 and learning from the old timers how to fish with wool and how to feel the "bite".  I don't know if people realized they were flossing, but slowly people figured it out.  I didn't actually hear anyone explain what flossing was until at least my 4th sockeye season, when guys started going to 6 foot leaders.  Even then, there were times that 3 feet was better, and you only needed to cast out with pencil lead. 

I'm amazed that the sport fishery for wild Fraser chinook has lasted this long.  In Washington, you generally need to release all unclipped chinook unless you are at a terminal fishery where only an introduced stock is present.  Chinook were never the high-volume runs that sockeye and pinks can be, and they are therefore much more susceptible to over-fishing.    Add to that the much longer life-cycle, and it makes the runs much harder to bring back.

I'll be curious to see what effect the closure of the SE Alaska chinook fishery has on Fraser returns this fall.  I think we should all be grateful that the US bought Alaska from Russia, otherwise they would have fished these stocks to extinction long ago.

[Rieber]

I still think it's worthwhile for the RECREATIONAL FISHERY to fight for the final scraps.
Concede the remaining pieces to Commercial & FN?

-No way!  there's still some fish out there... Let's go to the bitter end making them ours.

Just my thoughts

Fair enough. If there isn't a fight this year, there won't be any chance of fishing next year even good numbers of salmon are present.

[Robert_G]

I still think it's worthwhile for the RECREATIONAL FISHERY to fight for the final scraps.
Concede the remaining pieces to Commercial & FN?

Anyone who thinks the final scraps are going to anyone other than the natives is living in a pipe dream.

[RalphH]

For what it's worth, here's my limit of Skagit River (US) sockeye I caught in July in about an hour, BAR FISHING with a spin-n-glo and shrimp:

 

Back in the early 1990s when the sockeye sport fishery first opened on the Fraser, everyone was bottom bouncing with a 2-3 ft leader, just like they had done for pinks for years.

Hi. There is no photo.

It's true that back then about 3 ft of leader was common. However like sockeye and chum for that matter pinks were not considered sportfish in non-tidal water. They were all re-classified and opened at the same time. Prior to that DFO conducted test fisheries with volunteers to see  if those species could be caught without snagging them & they determined it was possible to do so.

Anyone who thinks the final scraps are going to anyone other than the natives is living in a pipe dream.

Blair the way the fishery is now constituted with 1st Nations access placed before everything else it is pretty much impossible to change. It's embedded in the constitution and in case law at the Supreme Court level. No other court in Canada, politician or official can change that without changing the constitution. Don't know how much you follow politics or your knowledge of recent history but it's all but impossible to change the constitution even for major issues such as senate reform.

[RalphH]

Well I have been here for 60.

Most people, including you, seem to have a compete lack of appreciation for what was taken away from 1st Nations, how many decades they took to get their loss addressed, the lack of attention of Government and the final criticism of the courts that the government and our society had egregiously acted in bad faith and now had to live with the court's ruling.

My father had a saying for the all the whining from some segments of the sport fishing community. "The world doesn't revolve around your a-hole!"

[dobrolub]

Well said blair! Let's not divide people based on their heritage, sex, religion, etc.

[RalphH]

I think both of you need to know & learn more about the law. I realize this is hard as people who argue this way consistently, ignore the law. All the British Laws and agreements with Native people have been carried forward and are binding. While history isn't binding it's a powerful force in the present. You can't wish that away either. We had our chance to come to a more modern and agreeable arrangement but the government and the sport fishing public preferred the binding solution of going to the SOC. The ruling was much worse than anyone imagined though they had been warned about this at every level of legal review.

Case closed.

[Sterling C]

Blair, please do yourself a favour and do some reading on 'Truth and Reconciliation'. I had never given it much thought before and had a similar attitude to yours.

Getting back to the state of our fisheries, instead lobbying DFO for the right to kill the last one, shouldn't you be asking how did we get here? How had a once plentiful resource been reduced to mere scraps that we must fight over?

[Tylsie]

In fairness, I don't think most are saying that First Nations legal fishing rights do not take precedence over sport fishers. What most are saying, and the law agrees and has been tested in court numerous times, is that they do come second to conservation concerns. There are several sustainable fishing techniques that would adequately sustain a true FSC fishery (not a commercial though which this is on the verge of) that does not require indiscriminate fishing methods such a as "poorly" strung gill net. This combined with the DFO's repeated failures such as pushing the Commercial harvest of later Chum which has been scientifically proven to be one of the main reasons for collapse of the interior steelhead population, these constant iterations of the closure being for the sake of conservation are running thin and soon they will run out of excuses and fish! 

[Sterling C]

This combined with the DFO's repeated failures such as pushing the Commercial harvest of later Chum which has been scientifically proven to be one of the main reasons for collapse of the interior steelhead population, these constant iterations of the closure being for the sake of conservation are running thin and soon they will run out of excuses and fish!

I don't recall ever having seen any scientific research that says the Chum fishery is the main reason for the collapse... Lots of anecdotal evidence and surely it plays a role but I don't believe for a second that closing the chum fishery alone is the answer.

[CohoJake]

Hi. There is no photo.

I think I fixed it now.  I hate that we lost photobucket.  Google photos is not easy to use in this instance.

[firstlight]

I don't recall ever having seen any scientific research that says the Chum fishery is the main reason for the collapse... Lots of anecdotal evidence and surely it plays a role but I don't believe for a second that closing the chum fishery alone is the answer.

The Chum fishery certainly played a big roll in the demise of Interior Steelhead but there are other factors too.
When the Oolichan is nearly wiped out like it is you know there are other reasons for fish stocks being wiped out.
Its a complicated thing and unfortunately they don't have a grasp on it very well.

[RalphH]

Oh come one the Indians ate all those eulichans!