immature Chinook salmon

You have no clue about me yet are keeping up the personal attacks.

You said to let it go on the last page and here you are still at it.

I have zero respect for you and your selfish motives.

Same here Sean. You have zero respect from me also for going after all of us on the Oak bay/Vic thread. Done with guys like you. Take take from the fishery and me me me, and my area. Maybe think next time you go and attack a thread for area 19/20 fisherman besides your own. We dont tell you what to do in your area when we are heavily restricted in summer when you are hammering same fish that are coming down to us. We dont push slot limits on you guys. We just comply and accept it. You were the one that started this on our reports page not other way around.
 
Last edited:
That is a pretty broad statement that completely ignores humans part in decimating the salmon population and places the sole blaim on salmon preditors.

I think salmon could recover if nothing is done about seals or sealions.


I can make a broad statement like that about humans if we don’t remove all dams. I think we all can agree salmon will not recover.
Don't overlook the Fish Farms.
 
Same here Sean. You have zero respect from me also for going after all of us on the Oak bay/Vic thread. Done with guys like you. Take take from the fishery and me me me, and my area. Maybe think next time you go and attack a thread for area 19/20 fisherman besides your own. We dont tell you what to do in your area when we are heavily restricted in summer when you are hammering same fish that are coming down to us. We dont push slot limits on you guys. We just comply and accept it. You were the one that started this on our reports page not other way around.
I felt just like you when I got flamed everytime I mentioned that a two Halibut under 136cm posession would be a lot fairer to mainlanders coming out West for a week. The vested interest groups want their take, take, take all year long and don't want to hear about another point of view if it might impact them. Living in Vancouver we could advocate for terminal fisheries on Salmon to improve conservation concerns and probably dent Tofinos fishing considerably but we don't. It's time sportsfishers stick together because individually we will be easy to pick off. As far as immature salmon go maybe the DFO should make it mandatory to keep and record toward your yearly limit and people can decide on that basis wether they want to fish or not but as of right now its legal to catch and release so lets not beat each other up about it.
 
That is a pretty broad statement that completely ignores humans part in decimating the salmon population and places the sole blaim on salmon preditors.

I think salmon could recover if nothing is done about seals or sealions

Its a moot point in any case. There is no way a west coast seal kill will happen, environmentalists from Canada and elsewhere would descend on BC, it would again draw attention to the East coast seal hunt which the liberals do not want. After the culls the population will recover, so it would have to be done again and again. The Liberals (or probably any political party) will never do it. Appeasing a proportion of a relatively small group of BC fisherman with a recurring blood sacrifice would not sit well with voters in many other areas across the country.

Even if they did it, it's far from certain that it would help. How many would you have to kill - 10%, 50%, 75% of them? We pump 300 million fat, naive smolts into estuaries every year from hatcheries. The seals (and gulls, mergansers, cormorants) have learned there is an easy feast waiting for them. Not all seals make a living eating these smolts. If you kill some of the estuary seals in all likelihood others will replace them as this will free up space at the table for seals that are living elsewhere. While there are a lot of smolts to eat, it still doesn't support all seals. A few years later the population will have rebounded in any case. The seal predation problem is largely a byproduct of hatchery practices.
 
Its a moot point in any case. There is no way a west coast seal kill will happen, environmentalists from Canada and elsewhere would descend on BC, it would again draw attention to the East coast seal hunt which the liberals do not want.
We pump 300 million fat, naive smolts into estuaries every year from hatcheries. The seals (and gulls, mergansers, cormorants) have learned there is an easy feast waiting for them. Not all seals make a living eating these smolts. If you kill some of the estuary seals in all likelihood others will replace them as this will free up space at the table for seals that are living elsewhere. While there are a lot of smolts to eat, it still doesn't support all seals. A few years later the population will have rebounded in any case. The seal predation problem is largely a byproduct of hatchery practices.
I agree california ... we have caused this problem with seals and other predators by providing the food via hatchery releases. This is happening in Alaska and Washington State also. It seems the more we learn about hatcheries, the more we see the detrimental effects.
 
Actually Dave Alaska is showing historical lows numbers pinniped populations which has scientist a bit baffled. This is what I have heard from Andrew Trites at UBC. This would disprove this hatchery idea. Interestingly those sea lion populations are entirely independent from our costal sea lion populations. They do not mix.
 
Seems there is a lot of improvements we can make for hatcheries


https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/ar...are-working-but-some-fear-they-could-backfire

So in the spring of 2016, his hatchery changed things up, releasing 5 million salmon smolts on a two-days-on-five-days-off regime that Smith says seems to have effectively foiled the predators.

John McManus, executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, which advocates for habitat restoration and improved fishery management, says the new release protocol could end up being a key strategy for ensuring abundant salmon populations in the future.

“This is big, really big, because this is a measure that we can easily scale up,” he says. “Without a doubt, millions of fish benefitted from going to two days on, five days off.”

The same release schedule was used in 2017. This, combined with heavy rainfall and high springtime river flows that probably helped naturally born salmon successfully escape the Sacramento River system, will likely mean good fishing next year.
 
Actually Dave Alaska is showing historical lows numbers pinniped populations which has scientist a bit baffled. This is what I have heard from Andrew Trites at UBC. This would disprove this hatchery idea. Interestingly those sea lion populations are entirely independent from our coastal sea lion populations. They do not mix.

Alaska natives actively hunt seal, The last native's I know to hunt seals in BC was an old guy in Campbell River and that was over 20 years ago.

Clearly seals are an issue. When my dad worked for DFO they had plans to do a seal cull in the lower and upper Fraser river. The department let them go out and apply for permits to buy silencers so they could covertly cull them in the middle of the night. It ultimately never got approved, but the plan is still their.

I think the only hope in B.C for a seal cull now would be to get the first nations involved in an annual harvest.

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2017/11/study_seal_and_sea_lions_stron.html

"According to the study, pinnipeds and killer whales ate roughly 5 million Chinook salmon in 1975 but are now estimated to consume 31.5 million individual fish each year."
 
okay so let blame the seal and sea lion population on those dam hatchery programs...lol just a small part of the bigger web problem in dealing with the killer whale , wild salmon policy & no habitat... and oh ya Man Kind..... come on data shows ( the science shows) they are a large part of the problem a un checked problem.. And as always when man steps in at whatever level there is a balance that will be required.... good ,bad or ugly never the less a part of the web that will require something to curve the cycle..... shutting down hatchery not doable at this time...perhaps in time with a balance approach of the wild salmon policy, habitat work a crap pile of money we can move off the hatchery's....That being said I pretty sure u will not see any new ones popping up but the ones in play will continue along... Then maybe if we closed all of them we could have a adopt and starving seal program :eek:
 
Its a moot point in any case. There is no way a west coast seal kill will happen, environmentalists from Canada and elsewhere would descend on BC, it would again draw attention to the East coast seal hunt which the liberals do not want. After the culls the population will recover, so it would have to be done again and again. The Liberals (or probably any political party) will never do it. Appeasing a proportion of a relatively small group of BC fisherman with a recurring blood sacrifice would not sit well with voters in many other areas across the country.

Even if they did it, it's far from certain that it would help. How many would you have to kill - 10%, 50%, 75% of them? We pump 300 million fat, naive smolts into estuaries every year from hatcheries. The seals (and gulls, mergansers, cormorants) have learned there is an easy feast waiting for them. Not all seals make a living eating these smolts. If you kill some of the estuary seals in all likelihood others will replace them as this will free up space at the table for seals that are living elsewhere. While there are a lot of smolts to eat, it still doesn't support all seals. A few years later the population will have rebounded in any case. The seal predation problem is largely a byproduct of hatchery practices.

Wow, you have got an amazingly narrow range of recognition and understanding! Dude, you honestly have to widen your repertoire, this is downright embarrassing!
 
Wow, you have got an amazingly narrow range of recognition and understanding! Dude, you honestly have to widen your repertoire, this is downright embarrassing!

California usual researches his post well and provides links to substantiate what he posts. While i don't agree with everything he says I do respect him for talking the time to read and understand a topic.

Instead of needlessly calling him out and belittling him. Why don't you post your point of view with links. So we can understand your thoughts and point of view better. What do you not agree with and what is your widened belief compared to his narrow one?

I think he stated what we all fear that there is no political will to do what may need to be done because a seal cull is bad policy with the average public. That will be sensationalized and incorrectly reported by the media.
 
Good post Wildman.. sometime I forget.... California just to let you know I do respect your perspective and posts and please do......just don't always agree with them as im sure you don't with mine.... I'm sure if we were to ever sit down we have fairly similar perspective.... In most case I cannot post links ect as I'm more of hands on in the process guy so it is hard for post the info that I come across..and sometimes it not best to on the forum as there are other eyes viewing... :)
 
Good post Wildman.. sometime I forget.... California just to let you know I do respect your perspective and posts and please do......just don't always agree with them as im sure you don't with mine.... I'm sure if we were to ever sit down we have fairly similar perspective.... In most case I cannot post links ect as I'm more of hands on in the process guy so it is hard for post the info that I come across..and sometimes it not best to on the forum as there are other eyes viewing... :)

I was not referring to your comments derby as I know you sit on various sports fishing communities and have insider knowledge of the industry and DFO policy. Calmsea I have no idea of his background and he just called him out and did not provide any incite to the topic at hand.

Do to recent events I am seriously contemplating the stance I want to take. Sometime I wonder if I should just completely change my train of thought and just solely focus on getting more take for sports fishermen and focus blindly on not loosing fishing rights. Sports fishermen seem to have a lot of different views on environmental policy and it seems to divide us. Other groups seem to blindly keep to their message and they seem to end up with more.

While i care so much for salmon and all marine life it would be a shame for sporties to make scarifices only to see the TAC go to other interest groups.
 
Actually Dave Alaska is showing historical lows numbers pinniped populations which has scientist a bit baffled. This is what I have heard from Andrew Trites at UBC. This would disprove this hatchery idea. Interestingly those sea lion populations are entirely independent from our costal sea lion populations. They do not mix.

Thanks J for the clarification, interesting indeed.
 
Instead of needlessly calling him out and belittling him. Why don't you post your point of view with links. So we can understand your thoughts and point of view better. What do you not agree with and what is your widened belief compared to his narrow one?

I think he stated what we all fear that there is no political will to do what may need to be done because a seal cull is bad policy with the average public. That will be sensationalized and incorrectly reported by the media.

There are only a couple of posters who mainly resort to Calmsea's tactics. It doesn't bother me, he understands little of the biology behind wild or hatchery salmon and obviously reads little or nothing on any of the science. I don't expect everyone to agree with me (or even the majority). Hatcheries are with many people a popular institution, but their negative effects are much better understood today, and they have not worked to increase stocks. There has been reluctance to even try anything new within the highly politicized and institutionalized hatchery system. As the post you made on the Sacramento river shows there may be alternative strategies that can improve hatchery returns. The DFO is finally experimenting on the Stamp river with the release of S1 Chinook smolts that are kept for an extra year, not fed so much, and are raised in variable water temp conditions. Some data from small early releases may be available soon. Changes like this may eventually allow fewer, more hardy smolts to be released, rather than the overfed, disease prone ones we dump in the estuary currently year after year. This is a start that could help the wild fish, and reduce the predator response to the current huge smolt dumps. Certainly habitat loss is the main issue, and why hatcheries are not going to be abandoned anytime soon. I'm aware of this, but the only way any systems can be weaned off hatcheries, and wild self sustaining stocks can be regained in at least a few places, is by calling out their shortcomings regardless if its popular with someone like calmsea or not.

This thread isn't about hatcheries, but targeting immature Chinook, and it seems there is division on if its a good idea or not to target them. I believe its a wasteful fishery with unacceptably high bycatch and resulting mortality of juveniles, others disagree which is fine. Regardless of where you stand on it, I believe changes will eventually come. At a minimum I would expect they will follow Washingtons policies and restrict it to hatchery only. We already do this for coho, so seems easy. The protection of SRKW is a train that seems to have lots of momentum too, and that could shut down areas in the winter to fishing as well.

Ill continue to read your posts wildmanyeah, I'm sure we will agree on some things, not on others, but your defense of being allowed an opinion is appreciated.
 
Good post Wildman.. sometime I forget.... California just to let you know I do respect your perspective and posts and please do......just don't always agree with them as im sure you don't with mine.... I'm sure if we were to ever sit down we have fairly similar perspective.... In most case I cannot post links ect as I'm more of hands on in the process guy so it is hard for post the info that I come across..and sometimes it not best to on the forum as there are other eyes viewing... :)

Thanks - I think our goals would probably be pretty similar in having sustainable fisheries, we might disagree on how to get there on some issues, but that's OK. I think we can certainly agree on fish farms!
 
We do have a winter Chinook fishery in WA (inside waters). WA has several marine area's similar to BC & each area has winter season's. Fin clipped Chinook only. Season's used to be several months; now there are 4-8 weeks per year. Overall strategy is to limit Chinook "encounters" per year between Summer/Winter seasons. I think they estimate how many people fish on any given open day, how many Chinook they "encounter" (i.e. hook-up) & what the overall mortality is. They can then look their numbers & set season lengths based on how many mortalities there are.

I find the attitude that 90% of the fish caught in winter where Scott lives are hatchery so WFT, kill em extremely disappointing. If they are clipped they are WA fish & I could make the argument that we in WA can only fish a couple months per year cuz SOME people up north seem to have ZERO respect for anything but themselves nor any use for an idea that wasn't their's. Same goes for those who think just cuz I don't live where you do I shouldn't have any ideas/input on your winter fishery that according to Scott is 90% US fish.

Never seen such a bunch of disrespectful comments from such a group of what is becoming apparent to me as a small group "bad apples" on this forum. OMG!!
 
Don't get your shorts in a knot Eric, the amount of pressure on "YOUR" fish in the winter fishery here
amounts to a fart in a windstorm.
Seldom see more than a few boats fishing any given day.
 
Back
Top