Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rodney]

FYI for those who are planning to head up:

http://www-ops2.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fns-sap/index-eng.cfm?pg=view_notice&DOC_ID=207412&ID=all

[wildmanyeah]

I’m sure you have herd Rod that this is just the start. Talk to your friends on the chinook SFAB committee. 

Big reductions coming to sporties coast wide for chinook.

[Tylsie]

The Closed the Skeena? Wow. Not just no retention of salmon but no fishing for them period? Just wow...

Those stocks are much more healthy than many the go up the Fraser. Not healthy by any means, but certainly better. Will be an interesting (boring) Summer. For years we couldn't fish for Chinook because we might intercept a sockeye; this year will be can't fish for sockeye because may catch a Chinook.

[steelheadfreak]

The saltwater rec sector needs to close as well or this is BS. Along with commercial and FN.

[Tylsie]

The saltwater rec sector needs to close as well or this is BS. Along with commercial and FN.

Curious, why should the Saltwater Rec Sector closed? Restriction, Possibly but a full closure seems extreme. Those fish are from various systems along the West Coast, all the way down to California, and are of various ages. Fish that are Located in the Skeena River are clearly returning to spawn there.

But I do wonder, if the DFO has decided that Skeena Springs are in such bad shape that they cannot even handle a single possible interception and subsequent release while fishing for Pinks and Coho then I have grave concerns about the impact of netting. Now of course, with there being no Commercial Chinook Fishery in the Skeena itself and the Sockeye threshold at 1 million fish, with the forecast High being about half of that, there was never any concern of the commercial sector opening intercepting them anyway. Somehow though, my concerns are not alleviated.

I am not trying to start a fight, or attack anyone group. But in all honesty at a certain point Conservation has to become paramount! If a stock is so troubled that it cannot handle the 10%(ish, given DFO accepted studies) mortality of Incidental catch and release then it certainly cannot handle mass netting!

[Steelhawk]

Just curious about this. Did DFO do some pre-season test fisheries in all affected areas to come down with such drastic closures? What's next? Fraser chinook too? What if they close sockeyes to protect the springs as somebody suggested above? It happened the other way around before.  Lol. I hope there is a sockeye opening this year if DFO wants to sell some fishing licenses after all the closures. Lol.

[bigblockfox]

I personally don't think sockeye will ever open again on the Fraser.   

[Dave]

I personally don't think sockeye will ever open again on the Fraser.

The pressure to open this fishery this year will be massive. 

[adriaticum]

I guess we never learned anything from the Newfie cod fishery.

[bigblockfox]

Conservation is key. Nothing else should matter.

[RalphH]

Did everybody forget there was a near identical closure last year? Low sockeye and Chinook numbers plus a need to accommodate FN fisheries are primary reasons for the closures. Last season Chinook closures were put in place in SE Alaska due to low returns to Canadian rivers. Expectation is strong similar measures will be put in place in waters to the south for much the same reasons and the need to protect Southern killer whale populations.

[CohoJake]

Did everybody forget there was a near identical closure last year? Low sockeye and Chinook numbers plus a need to accommodate FN fisheries are primary reasons for the closures. Last season Chinook closures were put in place in SE Alaska due to low returns to Canadian rivers. Expectation is strong similar measures will be put in place in waters to the south for much the same reasons and the need to protect Southern killer whale populations.

Also, the low chinook returns are a pretty widespread phenomena and not a surprise this year - from California to Alaska numbers are down, and ocean conditions have at least a large part of it.  The way I view it, Chinook spend one year longer in the ocean than coho, so it should be expected that chinook returns this year will generally be as depressed as coho returns last year.

I am curious though if anyone knows if surveys are done on out-migrating smolts in the Skeena system and other northern rives, and where to find that data online?  Same for interior Fraser tribubtaries - do they use smolt traps to count out-migrating chinook smolt, or do they base estimates on spawning surveys?

[Hike_and_fish]

Dont know why the Nass is closed. It was great last year. I take a guided trip almost every year up there and its lights out fishing. It's a shame.

[Dave]

Same for interior Fraser tribubtaries - do they use smolt traps to count out-migrating chinook smolt, or do they base estimates on spawning surveys?

I have been out of the game for a few years but afaik there are no chinook smolt numbers generated on a per stream basis.  There used to be a DFO contracted boat operating a fyke net on the lower Fraser counting juvenile salmonids but that was only for gauging overall trends, and there was no determination of stocks involved.  Again, afaik, adult chinooks are counted by DFO crews and FN from local interior bands, along with regular DFO helicopter flights on spawning tributaries.

[chris gadsden]

https://www.theprogress.com/news/salmon-closures-a-devastating-blow-to-north-coast-business/