El Nino

[mikevv]

Is this an El Nino year at the west coast?

In terms of fish and fishing what are the results of past El Nino years

[kildonan]

Can you say "HOLY MACKEREL"? Hehehehehehe

Do you have a veggie garden or pets? They make good fertilizer or cat food and I think the daily limit is 100.

I don't think this El-Nino is like past ones though. I recall about 10 years ago when fishing @ Renfrew, one could barely get the gear in the water there were so many of the bloody things around.

[Tsquared]

As the previous post says, the only people really happy during El Nino years are the bait companies because you go through so many packages of anchovy. It made it difficult to fish some prime areas because you couldn't keep the mackerel off your lines. There are a number of negative effects on salmon. The mackerel proved to be devastating for young salmon smolts just coming out of the river to begin their ocean life. Fisheries tried to stop this by hiring seine boats to seine the mackerel in places like Barkley sound. I have no idea whether it did any good or not. The other major effect it has is on returning adult salmon who are faced with unusually high water temperatures. I remember running down La Perouse Bank (off the west coast of Vancouver Island)in my commercial troller looking for something to fish in 1983. In a normal year, Laperouse is a moveable feast--there are huge schools of bait, salmon, dogfish, whales, birds--all you have to do is locate them. I zigzagged in and out and over top the bank all the way down to the eastern tip and over to the fingerbank. Nothing. No birds, no feed or salmon or whales. It was eery. Apparently when the water reaches a certain temperature, the salmon metabolism increases so that they literally cannot eat enough to avoid starving themselves and they get weaker and weaker. When sockeye runs that usually come down the west side of Vancouver Island feel those warmer waters, they usually head to the inside and down Johnstone Strait. Let's hope this year is not as bad as some of the previous El Nino years.
Tom

[kelly]

I caught 3 mackrel in port this summer i saw about 10. I caught them fishing off the china creek dock. (im a kid)

[JuandeOne]

From NOAA - updated Mar.3/05
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/product...tml#long-range

"Based on the recent evolution of oceanic and atmospheric conditions and on a majority of the statistical and coupled model forecasts, it seems most likely that weak warm episode (El Niño) conditions will gradually weaken during the next three months and that ENSO-neutral conditions will prevail during the last half of 2005."

[Tsquared]

Excellent news, Juandeone!
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