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[RalphH]

Here's the result of the BC Steelhead questionnaire from the 10 years ending March 31, 2022. I recently submitted mine for 2023/24.

The last 10 years tells a story. Most of the parameters have dropped by half or more. Reporting has dropped from around 65  to 70% to 43%. Angling days have dropped by half. It's sort of scary what's happening and there is no sign it will get better. Locally participation still seems high and lots of anglers fish frequently through the season despite declining success. This is a typical behavior recognized in creel surveys throughout North America.

[SuperBobby]

So in 10 years:
The angler effort (or pressure) has dropped by half.
The amount of Steelhead landed to shore or net has dropped from 104k to less than 16k per year.

And yet....Steelhead runs in general continue to decline.

I'm shocked that Ralphy boy would actually post proof of what we already knew....and that is that Steelhead fishermen (the Sporties) are not the reason that the numbers keep dropping.

[RalphH]

I made no inference one way or the other. However to prove anything, a hypothesis has to be tested. The questionnaire data is not such a test. It just shows while angling effort declines as angling success does some anglers do continue to fish and even catch fish. Creel surveys have found just that in the past. In some cases (not necessarily steelhead),  drastically reducing bag limits, adopting catch and release regulations  and banning angling methods that cause high release mortality can dramatically increase abundance and angling success. All that's been done with steelhead in BC.

[SuperBobby]

In some cases (not necessarily steelhead), reducing drastically reducing bag limits, adopting catch and release regulations  and banning angling methods that cause high release mortality can dramatically increase abundance and angling success. All that's been done with steelhead in BC.

Except for the fact that 99% of those changes were done long before the time period in the study you provided. If we check our regulations from the last 12 years, we will find that basically nothing has been changed from 2012-2024.
So basically, we have the same regulations, with a sharp drop in angler effort and fish landed.....and still....the returns continue to diminish....

[RalphH]

Except for the fact that 99% of those changes were done long before the time period in the study you provided. If we check our regulations from the last 12 years, we will find that basically nothing has been changed from 2012-2024.
So basically, we have the same regulations, with a sharp drop in angler effort and fish landed.....and still....the returns continue to diminish....

I didn't provide a study. I made this clear and made the exact point you made in your last sentence in my previous post.

[chief]

Check out www.islandfishermanmagazine.com article Re-Think What We Know about Salmon published April 15 2024 which also has a reference to steelhead

[clarki]

I’d be curious to overlay the Province’s steelhead stocking numbers against a couple of those columns,   particularly “Steelhead Kept”

[RalphH]

Thanks for posting that link Chief! What a great article. I have been reading articles and papers by Dick Beamish for close to 20 years and have great respect for his work. Among other virtues his work has such a refreshing intellectual honesty.

Near as I can find, active steelhead hatchery production is now down to 6 facilities with 5 operating in the Fraser Valley and the majority of it coming from federal facilities. Hatchery marked steelhead from facilities that have closed may still have been be returning in 21/22 but will be very rare by now.

Thought I'd mention that the actual data reported by anglers is reduced by some factor (about a third if I recall correctly) to account for "over reporting". Supposedly it is a standard practice throughout North America

[stsfisher]

With any luck the Active Angler number will fall enough for me to consider purchasing a tag again.

[DanL]

The last 10 years tells a story. Most of the parameters have dropped by half or more. Reporting has dropped from around 65  to 70% to 43%. Angling days have dropped by half.

If one defines success rate as catch per unit effort, ie  (#steelhead kept + released) / #angler days , then that has dropped by 70% over this time period based on this chart.

If there is anything encouraging (if you could even call it that), is that licenses sold have only dropped by ~10%, for now

[wildmanyeah]

If there is anything encouraging (if you could even call it that), is that licenses sold have only dropped by ~10%, for now

BC population has increased by a million people over that time

[RalphH]

BC population has increased by a million people over that time

more like 800k from 2013 to 2022 but that hardly negates your point. I'd say most people moving to BC aren't coming here for the steelhead fishing. Probably not for the fishing at all.