Poll - Sport Fishing and Salmon Stocks

totally tyee

Active Member
Well folks, I was sitting here doing some thinking about the never endeing BAD NEWS that we keep hearing over and over again about our precious west coast salmon stocks.

With so many stakeholders such as the commercial fishing industry, the sport fishing industry, the native fisheries, and several others there is a constant pounding on the fish stocks. Not to mention the terrible weather that is washing out the reds in the rivers.

I thought I would pose a question to you guys. I know there are so many other factors that contribute much more to the demise of the stocks but for the purpose of answering this question lets just think about the sportfishing aspect of things. And lets just pick Chinook and focus on them.

Lets face it, our precious salmon stocks aren't doing so well.

Which of the following options would you support as sportfishers to help sustain and/or re-build our salmon stocks?

A) Close the winter spring fishery until stocks can improve
B) Go back to the 1 under / 1 over rule
C) Close all retention in and near Chinook spawning rivers
D) Lower day and poss. limits to 1 and 2
E) No retention of Chinooks for 1 year (similar to previous coho)
F) No change, everything is fine

What do you guys think? hopefully this can spark some discussion over these sad winter months.

TT
 
I personally would like the possesion to 1 from 2 as i know the one over on under is just plain dumb witnessed with my own eyes guys tosing back dead 20 lbers because they got a 30 plus so and then tring to get a 12 to 15 lber can sometime be challenging when your tring to get one you always seemed to get a bigger fish then you got guys that dont know how to release a spring properly so now you have killed that one too same as the stupid retention of hatchery coho off of sooke when you wernt allowed a wild one I personally seen lots od them floating and dead because of releasing.

This debate can go on and on forever because we all put blame on every one but ourselves,how many times have we blamed commercial,natives(sorry first nations)etc.

One of the main problems from what I heard the other day was the russians off of the bering straight taking ton after ton of salmon ooopppps there I go blaming others

I would love to see the boundries back again but with a different twist

1 What you catch you keep in the boundries be it 2 coho or 2 spring but once you got them YOU have to leave wild or hatchery so this will minimize the fish being handled poorly.

2 Better enforcement I saw a fishery officer once during the summer out on the water never did see him at the dock and I was out every day we need some education on proper handling of fish and identification the stuff I saw personally at the fish cleaning station made me want to puke.


Just my 2 cents Wolf
 
Close all streams and rivers to any kind of fishing for everyone including First Nations for an indeterminate period of time until numbers of chinook and coho etc begin to rise ; the fish have fought this far to the nursery streams , they made the finish line , leave them alone.
Monitor the catch of sports and commercial fisherman much closer , fisheries and head counters at every marina and launch site , if creel survey warrants it reduce the catch limit for a 4 year period to 10 fish per person regardless of specie until the stocks show appreciable rise in numbers.
Radical ?.....yes , but the idea is to have fishing for our sons and duaghters into the forseeable future not only looking 5 years down the road and praying that its only a mistake in the numbers returning and that they are all late for the streams etc etc etc !

Just my 83 cents worth.(Inflation...and thats another topic eh?)

AL
 
D -still want to fish but don't need to keep that many. Lower the annual limit to 15 from 20.
If coho opening are availiable(inside waters) limit to one, either hatchery or wild.
 
D

Always thought about a complete cycle closure of 5 years or so.

The fishing sure ain't what it was like when I was younger. I miss those days of 20 and 35 feet on the downriggers at Sooke.
 
1 year closure wont do squat as they are(spring) on a 4 year cycle fish if we allow more to get to river they will have a better chance.



Wolf
 
would E work being just one year, wouldnt it have to cover 4 yrs to cover all cycle, so i think D would be a good start
 
I respect the concerns and suggestions.ie remedies, but right now a band aid heal. Might help a little but reading fresh water return numbers over the last few years tells me of serious concerns. Alley cat I agree with you, time to cut the river/stream fishery. O tolerance, period. Bear with my thoughts and opinions,but its going to be hard to convince me otherwise. Letter C
 
Lower the total yearly limits. Who needs that many fish for personal consumption?

C I don't see how it would be enforced given the way things are done now. Could it be enforced?

Here's an idea: How about figuring a better way to connect catching salmon with enhancing their numbers? A start might be to actually spend the money collected for salmon tags on salmon enhancement. It's my understanding that the Feds simply take the money from salmon tags into general revenue.
 
Smiley ill use this year for example year 2006 the fish that spawn now wont return to that same river till 2010 as they return evry 4 years so the only way it would work is to ban fishing for 4 years and I hope that will never happen and doubt it will.

hope you got it Wolf
 
D for chinook and for Coho first two coho you keep [wild or not ]
 
D

I think the current possesion limits are silly for Springs. Nobody will eat that much spring salmon in their family per year. I will kill 4 fish in the 20ish pound range per year, that's tons for me and my family of 4. I would think 10 would be tons for most families and that includes sharing with friends.
 
Exactly Kildonan , I take 4 to 5 in the 20's and 30's and like to get 6 to 8 coho for smoking , all the rest is canned or filleted and frozen in ice blocks for the rest of the year.
Bag limit decrease is definitely a start , preservation of the nursery streams is paramount in at least two ways and that is 1. NO FISHING and 2. habitat (read no touch zone minimum 1/4 mile from water flow banks)preservation for acceptable rearing gravel and channel development.

AL
 
C and D.....

And shut down the entire Strait of Georgia to all Salmon Fishing. I know it's extreme, but I think we're at that point.
 
Back
Top