quote:Originally posted by wolf
And ill further personally say and this is my opinion the hatchery fish we catch are mostly american anyways
Let me guess - Puget Sound, but at least they aren’t my early ESA! These would now be my ‘stocks of concern'.
I can safely say, it does not have to be an opinion! And, I think your 1 out of 10 might be quite low. You guys turn in ALL the heads clipped or not and I think you will find that U.S. numbers are much higher than thought, even by DFO. The Puget Sound early are more apt to hang around the Sooke/Victoria area than any Fraser - they mostly live on the south end and WCVI and they will move out of those currents at the end of the Strait, right into you - And DFO KNOWS that! They are one of the many that did the study on that, that I read years ago! Most of those caught in May, are very much my Yankee ESA fish - DFO KNOWS that. You are now mostly getting Puget Sound summer/fall ‘cookie-cutters’ – Nisqually and Green River fish. I would be very surprised if you got many Fraser at all – right now, this week - but they are coming very shortly. BTW if it is white – there is over a 90% chance it is Fraser, clipped or unclipped! You might want to think about letting that one go this year! There are very few Nicola passing Sooke/Victoria right now. Catching one of those would be very much like a needle in a hay stack - literally! This is now the middle of June, most of those are in the rivers?
quote: I did ask the question in the meeting basically this " is the hatchery going to increase the amount of fin clip salmon being returned to the ocean from the Nicola watershed"????? the answer was YES!!! so that gives us "more" chance of actually catching this run....
Well, you got me on this? I would like to know when and how they are going to increase the ‘Nicola’ clipping – they already clip 100% of them. Are they going increase the number of smolts? I don’t think so and they sure didn’t do it in 2009. And, the only think DFO has done there is reduce the number of smolts from over 330,000 (?) down to around 240,000(?). I can get you the exact numbers, if you want?
But, I do just keep getting confused and like someone to ask DFO a question sometime? I find it interesting that DFO can make an issue of all this now - when they are the ones that have consistently reduced/cut the Spius Creek Hatchery production of Chinook smolts from a high of 1,141,410 in 1989 down to 394,112 in 2006? So, if DFO allows their habitat destroyed, reduce the smolt production, and then become concerned and complain about less fish and low returns? I am confused – can they please explain that one?
http://www.canbcdw.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/ows/reports/releaseReport.asp?
Then, when I check the First Nations catch, they really didn’t even target those Chinook? I see a catch of ten (10), through May-23 in the lower Fraser and not a fish taken since… that’s really sad!
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fraserriver/firstnations/PDFs/ChinookKeptCatch.pdf
Interesting games you Canucks are playing up there, ey?
