2011 Salmon Head Recovery Program

[Doug]

I just Received my salmon sport head recovery program report for 2011. Guides and sports angler submitted more than 13,315 heads in 2011.

In the heads submitted in 2011 approximately 1 in 5 Chinooks and fewer than 1 in 9 Coho had code wires.

With all the heads turned in by our boat only one fish was tagged from Washington and the other tags were from BC. I was surprised that this year we had two tags from the Cowichan River.

Here are the top two Chinook code wire tag recoveries grouped by areas of tagged stocks.

Caught in zone 19-20

MAY - 83% Puget Sound, 8% Upper Columbia and 8% Georgia Strait
JUNE - 42% Puget Sound, 33% Upper Fraser
JULY - 61% Puget Sound, 14% Upper Fraser
AUG - 39% Puget Sound, 28% Lower Fraser
SEPT - 43% Puget Sound, 28% Georgia Strait and 28% Lower Fraser
OCT to APRIL - 69% Puget Sound, 17% Lower Fraser

Thank you Puget Sound Hatcheries

 

[scott craven]

Ditto to that, without them our Chinook fishery would be pretty bleak.

 

[cuttlefish]

X2! Thanks for the info.

 

[Fish Assassin]

USA USA USA.... Is that not the victory chant.

 

[scott craven]

USA USA USA.... Is that not the victory chant.

world juniors, not so much...
then again, canadians ... not so much

 

[Fish Assassin]

Was that not the Bin Laden Chant....... USA USA USA

 

[wolf]

AND ill bet you my last 25 cents that our may/june fishery will be closed after those "upper fraser" fish stats tell....
So GET ready for the season to be closed YEP I said it here very bleak I BET YOU!!!!!

 

[Lipripper]

I wouldn't bet against that...

 

[Charlie]

Do NOT send this or tell Chris that during the month of MAY, those Upper Columbia Springs (mostly from the Snake and Yakima Rivers) equated to 8% of that head recovery catch. It will burst all his faith in his "in the know" DFO contacts, hurt his feelings, and he will finally have to concede after all these years that the Columbia Chinook due indeed migrate and are caught in areas 19 and 20, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, ON THE CANADIAN SIDE!

Oh, BTW IMHO... Obama is probably Pacific salmons worst nightmare! I think he might actually be listening to Harper telling him how great the Atlantic salmon fish farming is for GDP?

 

[scott craven]

AND ill bet you my last 25 cents that our may/june fishery will be closed after those "upper fraser" fish stats tell....
So GET ready for the season to be closed YEP I said it here very bleak I BET YOU!!!!!

The Fraser river fish will continue to decline until nets are banned in the river.
there is simply no point in closing the sports fishery and then allowing F.N.
to net them in the river before they get a chance to spawn.
If DFO see fit to close our fishery, it should be closed for all user groups with no exceptions.

 

[wolf]

Good luck on that one Scott The FN is fighting this battle with "OUR" money YES you have the solution but thats not the way it will come down as its ALL political. So like I said earler DO NOT plan on a good year guys DFO is going to hammer us this year plain and simple the log book program and the head recovery is just the ammo DFO got to shut us down. THIS was/is what they have always wanted and as you know FN is priority 1, they need the fish to sell to support the bands call me a racist I dont care ill call it as I see it.
AND im sure our loved JDF derby will be in trouble this year.
I REALLY HOPE I AM WRONG but the rumblings im hearing is not good

wolf

 

[scott craven]

I don't get it , what is the purpose of shutting it down in the ocean so they can be killed in the river ?
If the ultimate goal is to preserve the fish , then shut it down for everyone.

 

[profisher]

The returns of springs to the upper Fraser were a lot higher than expected this past summer. DFO was expecting the worst returns ever as 2008 was a very poor return year and the 2011's are offspring from the 2008's. The returns were not just slightly up, but significantly up. They don't know why. I don't share the doom and gloom prediction for the upcoming season, as 2009 was a far better year than 2008. We should be pushing for a minimum of 1 over (hatch or wild) before the Fathers Day weekend.

 

[profisher]

Scott the whole thing is political and makes no sense. If conservation is the real deal, why are the nets still in the river and why is WCVI and further north open? Do these so called threatened stocks only swim around in a big circle in area 19 and 20?

 

[scott craven]

Scott the whole thing is political and makes no sense. If conservation is the real deal, why are the nets still in the river and why is WCVI and further north open? Do these so called threatened stocks only swim around in a big circle in area 19 and 20?

Exactly ! why are we the only ones that can see the truth of the matter ?

 

[chris73]

Just to enlighten your ignorance Charlie, area 20 goes west to Bonilla Pt. Lighthouse halfway to Bamfield. The Columbians are caught near Renfrew and west. There is no Columbian run near Victoria/Sooke. I have yet to find ANYONE who could produce a Columbian tag from Victoria/Sooke. Dream on, dude.

 

[Jockey]

Actually I caught one in the bite me derby a couple of years ago that had a wire tag from the upper columbia. It was a 17 pounder, deffinetly a mature fish and it was a bit short and stubby. I remember at the weigh in almost everyone else had these long slender fish mine didn't fit in with the rest.

So some deffenitly do come down our side maybe not in huge numbers but they can be found. Also I think our winter fishery around victoria relies on those pudget sound hatcheries. I had two tags from this past season from the columbia but I can't remember if they were caught in Renfrew or Sooke, and I am not sure if they were from mature fish or smaller feeders. Most of the heads I sent in this year did not have any wire tags in them.

 

[calmsea]

You guys should be careful with those origin percentages. I suspect the US hatcheries tag way more salmon than BC and therefore you would of course see more tag returns on US fish. Those numbers only say how many of the tagged fish are from the various places - not of all the fish caught. Say the US tags 10% of their salmon and BC only 1% - there is a 10x difference in the total.

Re the Columbians, when I was young(er) we used to call the early springs in April/May Columbians because they looked short and stubby and someone must have said that Columbian springs look like that. Was a common term back then for Sooke fish in the early part of the season. If that was based on any science, I doubt it. But there used to be a plate somewhere on the Botanical Beach saying that Columbia springs travel down the JDF, turn around at the San Juans and then go back out on the US side of the JDF. I have heard since from various sources that this is BS and coincidentially the plate has disappeared some years ago. Apparently science had shown that the stubby spring springs were in fact Fraser bound salmon. To me that makes sense, why would Columbian springs make such a weird detour on their way home? And I have never had a Columbia tag return in the eastern JDF in all those years. I had some at Renfrew though. Lots in Bamfield. I don't doubt that there is the odd Columbian spring here at anytime throughout the year. But I doubt in any noteworthy numbers. BTW, the Bite Me Derby is mid August and that is also different from the early season springs.

 

[profisher]

Just go to Renfrew and catch the same fish 20 miles up the road. Cause that helps conservation, apparently. It also ensures that all the established marina's hotels, charters, B&B's and restaurants in Victoria and Sooke go under which in some twisted way must help the government coffers too. Just applying the same logic, hey all of a sudden I think I'm developing an understanding of Patrick on Sponge Bob a bit more.

 

[DHA]

@profisher