the more i read the more i see how misinformed this sector is on anything commercial related.
well fisher, lets look at this argument a little close
1) ei for fishermen is not based on hours but on revenue. hrs is only applied to shore based jobs.
Correct, and shore based jobs are 50% (or more) of the total economic contribution from the commie sector. If you compare hours of EI between the two sectors, I would imagine the total drain on the economy is a wash. Guides employed by lodges being roughly equal to shore workers employed by the large corps. Where you need to be looking (in order to oppose or support my argument) is the value of each fish. It has been proven by many economists with much more skill than I will ever have that a sport caught fish has an economic contribution of 10 to 20 times that of a commercially caught fish
2) the most efficient and selective fishery today is the seine fishery. It is nothing more than a moveable trap. the fish are brailed into sorting boxes, sorted and if there happens to be a spring or coho in the brailer it is put in a revival box until it is ready to be released.
complete and utter crap. Please let me know where the efficiency is in taking a 60 ton trap and moving all over the coast versus a set wier that passively re-directs salmon to a waiting location for individual sorting and capture or release. Not to mention that well over 50% of the sorted fish die prior to or shortly after release from a revival box. Scale and slime loss in a brailing bucket is horrific. Any biologist worth half his salt will take one look at those fish in a revival bin and pronounce them DOA. In addition, seine fisheries have proven many times over that they are the least selective fisheries and commonly intercept mixed races of fish. In essence wiping out smaller river stocks while chasing the large schools of larger rivers. Don't believe me? Have a close look at the status of every small river on the ECVI and their decimated populations of nearly every species they support.
and Trolling drags the fish around till the fisher decides to pull it in and if released is so tired you may as well cut it up and hand feed it to the seals.
more bs. With regards to fish quality, troll caught has ALWAYS had a higher per pound value and sells for more at wholesale level. I wonder why that is. Perhaps its the quality of the fish and the fact that they haven't been crushed in a massive seine of tons of fish and hauled on board and dropped into a hold. While seiners may small brail and sort when an observer is on board, they commonly haul everything on board and dump it if and when they can, when an observer is not on board.
gillnetting is the worst of the group, hang the fish by the head until you decide to pick up the gear, who knows how many fall out dead, there is no selection and very limited chance of survivial.
No argument here. Gill netting should be banned. But it is about as selective as seining. While it does not discriminate with regards to species, at least it targets terminal fisheries and not mixed races. Yes that can mean mixed races from tributaries, but at least it eliminates the over harvest of small systems that empty direct into the Pacific.
3) as for halibut, commercial guys are paid less for any fish over 80 lbs. the best revenue if you can find them is 40-60. belive it or not many larger fish are released because A) they are the largest producer of eggs and B) they are less valuable.
While it is true that larger fish yield a lower /lb value, I would love to see the stats of how many large egg producing female halibut are released by the commies. To even suggest that they throw back large fish is laughable.
lastly if it is a sport fishery then what is the bs about largest fish wins the prize. so what you sit there holding a 20 till a 40 comes along and throw the 20 back dead. the sportsfishery in all its self proclaimed glory is the worst managed fishery on this coast.
More crapola. High grading is simply NOT a factor. Never has been and never will be. This is a miniscule % of sport fishing (salt or fresh). I defy you to find ANY evidence of this EVER being a concern to DFO, guides, or ANYBODY. If you want to challenge the sport in the sport fishery, you would have been better off to challenge the species or wild poaching and over limit harvest, not the high grading. But even then a poached wild fish is still worth 10 - 20 times more than the same wild fish when it is commie caught in a non-selective manner. I'll take that economic value of a sport caught poached dead wild fish any day over the same economic value of the same dead wild commercially caught non-selective, non-terminal, crushed, low quality, low value fish.