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[cdjk123]

Food for the thought:

Would you support a complete recreational/first nations/commerical fishing closure on the fraser and it's tributaries for 5 years if there was a guarantee that the fishing would be better and more productive?

[wildmanyeah]

Would need to add ocean fisheries imo.

[stsfisher]

Food for the thought:

Would you support a complete recreational/first nations/commerical fishing closure on the fraser and it's tributaries for 5 years if there was a guarantee that the fishing would be better and more productive?

There are no guarantees in life......

[wildmanyeah]

I have thought about this before as its been brought up. The counter argument has been we have already done this for the last 20 years with IF coho. The interception rate on those fish has been less then 5% for a very long time and they have not recovered.

That being said 5 years is nothing, to a salmon that is essentially 1 generation.  Really for this experiment to bare fruit it would probably have to be more like 20 years. Then a review of salmon stocks would have to take place. See what ones have recovered and what ones have not.  Then based on all that data new escapement targets could be made.

I think we would see some stocks that would greatly benefit from this but others like sockeye we may not. Lots of sockeye stocks on this coast have not been fished for a number of years and simply have not recovered.  Rivers inlet sockeye is an example of this.  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/when-the-salmon-stop-running/article4160858/

There is also a theory called Depensation or critical mass . Basically once a fish stock drops below a certain level it may never recover or may take 100's of years or some kind of natural event to get it back above that critical tipping point. 

Then in the case of our hatchery fisheries well a lot of the returns are based on how much brood stock is taken and ocean survival especially on systems where there is little to no spawning habitat or the hatchery fish just swim right.

In brood terms tho I think we would see a good benefit but after those years we would still have to refrain from not harvesting them all.

[cdjk123]

There are no guarantees in life......

lol it's a hypothetical question

[skaha]

-- You would only have to give up one year then compare the return run size.
-- Many are suggesting the terminal fisheries, ie. in river selective fisheries where actual numbers are known and actual escapement numbers are known would allow for better management than the current ocean fisheries, based on estimates, often when it is too late to change catch quotas or adjust for by-catch.

[RalphH]

-- You would only have to give up one year then compare the return run size.
-- Many are suggesting the terminal fisheries, ie. in river selective fisheries where actual numbers are known and actual escapement numbers are known would allow for better management than the current ocean fisheries, based on estimates, often when it is too late to change catch quotas or adjust for by-catch.

No one year is not sufficient. There is so much natural variability from one year to the next not even considering fish from different years are different brood stocks, comparisons would be all but meaningless. For or five years would be the minimum if all habitat factors were stable and supportive, which they are not.

[skaha]

--giving up 1 or 5 years would not reduce variables and may introduce the variable of increased returning stock. I doubt there is any way to get anything but anecdotal information as there are so many you would have to have some sort of control for comparison. After 5 years those conducting the experiment would ask for another 5 years and so on we would go.
--Reminds me of the last 20 years of no fishing for kokanee in Okanagan lk. One would think after no fishing for so long the lake would be overflowing. If we can't "fix" a lake by not fishing, I very much doubt we can "fix" the ocean by not fishing.

[RalphH]

personally I have always been skeptical of the 5 year closure suggestion. As you say there are so many variables. The reason this idea comes up so often is the common myth that to return salmon to abundance we just need to get more fish on the spawning grounds. Yet look at something like the this year's Fraser River pink run. Right now it looks like it is having a major rebound after 3 cycles of decline including the worst return (2017) in 30 or 40 years. Lots of studies have shown convincingly that abundant escapement is not the main factor behind future abundant returns. Escapement that is too high actually leads to reduced spawning success when spawning grounds are over crowded with fish. Too many young fish leads to too much competition among fry and parr and reduced survivial.

[Blood_Orange]

I'd be in favour of banning catch and release when salmon fishing. You catch it, you kill it, you go home.

Allowing people the opportunity to inadvertently kill fish that are valuable, at-risk, and in-demand is silly.

Wouldn't work in saltwater areas where there are mixed salmon species but might reduce the crowds on the river

[CohoJake]

I'd be in favour of banning catch and release when salmon fishing. You catch it, you kill it, you go home.

Allowing people the opportunity to inadvertently kill fish that are valuable, at-risk, and in-demand is silly.

Wouldn't work in saltwater areas where there are mixed salmon species but might reduce the crowds on the river

EWWWW - you've never caught fish that were past their prime in the river and had to be picky about what you take home?  Never target coho and land a ton of dark spring jacks?  Never landed a prime chrome fish that had a seal bite or net mark that was festering?  No thanks.

[SPEYMAN]

Just my opinion.

I enjoy catching fish, I do not need to harvest fish.I enjoy eating fish, but how much do you need. Non retention of a species does not mean no  fishing. I enjoy fishing and have no problem with C&R, but there must education on how to C&R properly.Try and do a little educating,not yelling and cursing. Be nice.

[Blood_Orange]

EWWWW - you've never caught fish that were past their prime in the river and had to be picky about what you take home?  Never target coho and land a ton of dark spring jacks?  Never landed a prime chrome fish that had a seal bite or net mark that was festering?  No thanks.

Fair enough

[stsfisher]

lol it's a hypothetical question

Lol, yes of course  . Not sure I could support anything suggestive or imagined. 
 

[skaha]

--I think the idea has merit but a case study of a smaller system could give some answers. I would propose using kokanee in a much smaller closed system. Rather than taking on the Fraser.
--A lake would have no commercial fishing by-catch and would be more easily monitored. The lake could still be open to fishing with no fishing for kokanee. I just cannot see how we could monitor and measure results on such a large system as the Fraser. Even simple thing like (what is better) would you measure biomass, individual fish size or the number of fish near some ideal size and vigor.