I took you up on your challenge Rod, and this past week I attended my first SFAB meeting. The angling reps were quite concerned about the saltwater chinook closures, which ain't my jam, but it was interesting to listen to the conversation. There were a couple of very interesting presentation about 2019 south coast salmon stock assessment. Pretty grim overall, with Fraser pinks being the one semi-bright spot.
What was interesting is the relative health of the summer (Thompson) 4-1 chinook, as compared to the spring and summer 5-2 and 4-2 stocks. Since the 4-1 just spend 1 year in freshwater as opposed to the other stocks that spend 2, the presenter wondered aloud if there was so something going on in freshwater in that the fish that spent less time in it fared better. He wasn’t substituting causation for correlation, and was just wondering aloud, but it was food for thought.
I will say that I was gained a new appreciation for the complexities of stock assessment, the effort and resources that DFO puts into it, and the challenges of managing fisheries when stocks/species are co-mingled, especially when some stocks arrive late as the Fraser pinks did this year. Sure DFO made some unpopular management decisions, but it becomes harder to vilify them when you listen to them and understand the complexities of the issues.