It’s a sad commentary on human behavior when you see the disproportionate negative effect the lodge and guide industry has on prudent fishery management up on the Skeena system
September 2021 was a classic example of how Provinicial fishery managers could be bullied into doing precisely the wrong thing after getting barraged with phone calls from people who have a vested monetary interest in a laissez faire approach to the commercial rec fishery seasons despite the fact that steelhead return projections were well below the Critical Conservation threshold level for the river system
And the loudest loudmouth of all in that particular guiding fraternity when interviewed, freely admitted that the mortality rate in a catch and release steelhead fishery where fish are being caught numerous times could be as high as 15%. I’m not making that up
All that blatant over-capitalization by the lodges and the guides, adding more rooms and purchasing bigger sleds in the face of ever dwindling runs brings a new level of tragicomedy to the concept of Tragedy of the Commons
They act as if they own the resource and always have—-it’s a gag me with a soup spoon sense of metastasized entitlement when you see their parade on the river—you can see it all plain as day the way they navigate their sleds full of their well-heeled clients when you’re on foot and wading. They think nothing of cutting you off, putting their clients in below you..... whatever it takes.
The rest of us non-commercial rec fishermen are just in their way
