2016 Regs - Nootka Sound
- Thread starter SeaWolf
- Start date
Aces
Well-Known Member
Yeah you won't like them if you fish Ferrer pt
saanauk
Well-Known Member
trophywife
Crew Member
i have heard the new boundary lines are going to bring the suck. would be good if they were posted up. i cant find them yet.
RiverBoy
Well-Known Member
Heard this as well
You have the Pacific Salmon Treaty to thank. Per the treaty, SE Alaska & BC Area F trollers catch quota is based on an "abundance index" (estimate of total number of Chinook). This year's index is twice what last year's was (lot's of Hatchery Columbia River fish) so SE Alaska & BC Area F will be removing about 500,000 Chinook from the gene pool. According to the chart in this link http://wildfishconservancy.org/abou...d-fishery-chinook-catch-composition-1999-2010
15% of SE Alaska's 250,000 fish are WCVI Chinook (45,000 fish) wild & hatchery. Also realize that during the SE Alaska winter & spring inside troll fisheries, 45,000 non-Alaska Chinook are allowed. Also note that of all Chinook caught in Alaska, only 3% are "Alaskan" fish. Don't know about you, but I was shocked by this graph - I have no problem calling them the commies now.
So for the trollers, their limits double in good years (or what are predicted to be good years) while ours get get cut. Down here in WA state the ocean chinook quota is about 30,000 fish & Puget Sound is 3,000 fish (about a week's worth).
FYI you might want to poke around the wildfishconverservancy.org web site; they think that these indiscriminate ocean troll fisheries are destroying the native runs & responsible for the size reduction in Chinook Salmon (large Chinook spend more years in the ocean & if "X" percent of all Chinook get caught each year then 5X of Large one's get caught versus 3X for Smaller one's).
15% of SE Alaska's 250,000 fish are WCVI Chinook (45,000 fish) wild & hatchery. Also realize that during the SE Alaska winter & spring inside troll fisheries, 45,000 non-Alaska Chinook are allowed. Also note that of all Chinook caught in Alaska, only 3% are "Alaskan" fish. Don't know about you, but I was shocked by this graph - I have no problem calling them the commies now.
So for the trollers, their limits double in good years (or what are predicted to be good years) while ours get get cut. Down here in WA state the ocean chinook quota is about 30,000 fish & Puget Sound is 3,000 fish (about a week's worth).
FYI you might want to poke around the wildfishconverservancy.org web site; they think that these indiscriminate ocean troll fisheries are destroying the native runs & responsible for the size reduction in Chinook Salmon (large Chinook spend more years in the ocean & if "X" percent of all Chinook get caught each year then 5X of Large one's get caught versus 3X for Smaller one's).
spring fever
Well-Known Member
Nope going to be the 13th or 14th!! Man what a balls-up!!
cohochinook
Well-Known Member
That's some pretty shocking stats. Thanks for enlightening us. Will check out their website and bring it up at SFAB meeting in the fall.
cohochinook
Well-Known Member
I pulled this from their website:
"Another example can be illustrated by the Chinook of the west coast of Vancouver Island. There, pristine old-growth rivers where wild Chinook can thrive still exist, yet some of these rivers have as little as 1% of the Chinook they did fifty years ago. These rivers cannot afford any harvest and may never recover without managers giving priority to their recovery. That can only be done on an individual basis, but unfortunately, hundreds of miles to the north, Alaska is busy harvesting Chinook to the degree that of all of the West Coast Vancouver Island Chinook landed in the ocean fishery, 68% are caught in Alaska. Some are very likely remnants of the highly depressed stocks."
Actually it gets worse. From what I can gather, all Chinook returning to SE Alaska rivers are Spring Chinook, primarily from hatcheries. They are marked by some sort of heating process when young, which deforms a bone in their head. The heads of Salmon caught are then examined as to whether or not they are of Alaska Hatchery origin. All other Chinook not marked in this manner are called "treaty Chinook, & 45,000 treaty Chinook are allowed to be caught from Oct - June.
The abundance index is generated by using 7 or so "indicator runs" for prediction. As far as i know, all these indicator runs come from rivers where large numbers of Coded Wire Tag Hatchery fish are released. At something like 55 million fish, the Columbia River is the source of a lot of fish represents about 50% of the SE Alaska BC area F commercial Chinook catches.
What this means is that a bunch of people on our government payroll think fishing depleted native runs as hard as the Columbia Hatchery runs (close to 3 million returning Chinook) is a good idea.
If you poke around the recent activity of the Chinook Technical committee http://www.psc.org/membership_committees_technical_chinook.htm they are beginning to see the light to manage this fishery by other methods, but it looks like they will rely on Coded Wire Tags (CWT), which to me means hatchery fish only. So for WCVI you have some Hatcheries that MAY be good indicator for other WCVI native runs, but not sure about the central/north coasts. This also means BC has to fund the CWT programs.
The abundance index is generated by using 7 or so "indicator runs" for prediction. As far as i know, all these indicator runs come from rivers where large numbers of Coded Wire Tag Hatchery fish are released. At something like 55 million fish, the Columbia River is the source of a lot of fish represents about 50% of the SE Alaska BC area F commercial Chinook catches.
What this means is that a bunch of people on our government payroll think fishing depleted native runs as hard as the Columbia Hatchery runs (close to 3 million returning Chinook) is a good idea.
If you poke around the recent activity of the Chinook Technical committee http://www.psc.org/membership_committees_technical_chinook.htm they are beginning to see the light to manage this fishery by other methods, but it looks like they will rely on Coded Wire Tags (CWT), which to me means hatchery fish only. So for WCVI you have some Hatcheries that MAY be good indicator for other WCVI native runs, but not sure about the central/north coasts. This also means BC has to fund the CWT programs.
