Video Recording-Fraser River Native Fishery 2020

I fished salmon in the Mission to Hope stretch for 20 years. Haven been forced off the water by FN more than once. That said, there are many reasonable First Nations folk but the small percentage that are too aggressive give the whole group a very bad reputation. I've seen many drift nets tangled on snags and deadheads, with fish in the nets, left to rot in the river. Local explanations are 'people' are drift fishing at night and in the dark lose the ability to find or retrieve the net. I've witnessed beach seining for salmon at Mountain Bar (just downstream of the Harrison Fraser confluence) where 'desired' fish were just thrown 20' through the air to the sandbar, and fish not wanted handled without any care at all and THROWN through the air back into the river. No "respect for nature" AT ALL !!!

Local intel out there is that there's a stretch of Fraser behind (north) of Sumas Mountain that is not easily visible from roads on either side of the river. That's apparently where a lot of night netting takes place. Don't know if you can drone-film there at night. Local Chilliwack intel also indicates refrigerated semi-trailers of FN salmon driven to Alberta. Some apparently taken to Washington state FNs as well because the Fraser was also THEIR traditional fall harvest area.

Go out to Island-22 boat launch in early September and you'll find truck loads of fish totes, even forklifts and appropriate watercraft, for handling commercial sized quantities of salmon.
 
Are there any hunters on this forum? Not a hunter myself but I think part of their gear is night vision binoculars. Would be great if we had access to night vision recording devices. I assume with the amount of money at stake there are many illegal river operations under the cover of darkness.

Rather than just video surveillance, would the rcmp or DFO do anything if we called it in while the crimes are being committed? If DFO and the cops aren't willing to do their jobs when it is blatantly evident this kind of **** is happening, they can't say no to enforcement action if it was reported correct?
 
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Chasin' Dreams said:
There's been a lot of us upset and venting about the new Spring Salmon regs and the continued disappointing mismanagement of our resources by DFO and their obviously biased coalition they have formed with the Natives in BC.

I for one am fed up with the discrimination the government, DFO, and the Natives are showing to the rest of us who are all part of sharing and protecting this resource.

It is my believe that the government and DFO have put such heavy restrictions on the commercial fishermen and the sportsfishermen so that they can let the Fraser River get overloaded with Springs so that the Natives can completely annihilate them to decimated numbers. I believe this is completely arbitrary and discriminatory to all the other sectors that have interests in these fish.

It is also my belief that DFO has been purposely meeting with other interested parties of this resource to gather information, statistics, etc to use that info to take it to the Natives (who have been lobbying them hard) to use that info to go ahead with these regulations that are ONLY targeted to negatively affect the commercial and sportfishermen of our Province; while the Natives continue to see all of the benefits from them.
This has been the reason I have stayed away from any meetings, info gathering/sharing etc by sportfishing and commercial fishing organizations whom I know have been sharing all of that info with DFO. Yes I know and understand these organizations have good intentions and have hoped that the work they have been doing would help us in the end but it has not been the believe of mine which sadly comes from my negative opinion and outlook about DFO and the government that was driven into me by my own very negative experiences when trying to help politically, personally, and financially in past years.

So enough is enough and I hope that we can try to shed some light what is going to go on on the Fraser River this Summer with regards to the Natives and our Spring Salmon and DFO's mismanagement.

I am volunteering to use my drone and whatever resources I can muster from friends, family etc to get some video footage of the blood bath on the Fraser River this Summer. I do have some friends with jet boats that I will go to to ask for help volunteering and I have a friend with a small media business, but I am posting this hear to also ask for help from other concerned folks who want to do something about this.

We will need people that are good with video editing, people that are level headed and mature enough to stay away from conflict with the parties involved. This HAS TO BE done in a way that our goals are met to gather information and video footage to show the rest of the world what is really going on here. We will need people that may have contacts with the major media outlets and ways of getting this information onto social media in ways that it is monitored by us so that it is not lead down a darker path where everything will be removed. Yes we are all very upset but we have to do this the right way so that it is the resource that we are working for, not our egos. We will also need people who may have some inside information with regards to when and where the Natives will be fishing etc. I do have some of that info but as much as possible the better.

I will be away for a few days on a fishing trip but I will have email/wifi so feel free to send me messages with your contact information. We can then communicate through emails, phone calls etc.

Please refrain from any racist comments or sharing thoughts of physical harm, vandalism etc. We are going to keep this professional and organized.

Please share your thoughts, ideas etc on this thread but if something is better kept to a personal information level then message me and we can communicate by email/phone calls.
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I'm a little confused. You say no racism and yet how many times do you single out one group in the above post?
 
Interesting point the RCMP may be better at stopping folks from breaking the laws than the politically castrated DFO enforcement folks when it comes to FN issues on the river. However I am not clear on the legal and jurisdictional issues.
 
wildmanyeah said:
Is there another group gillneting on the Fraser??
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I dont live on the Fraser, and I dont know her politics. But this is clearly pointing at a single group for all that ails the BC Chinook Fishery.

I think @Rain City pointed out that none of this goes anywhere when the clearly stated mission of a group is discriminatory. And with a first post so clearly focused in on a single, clearly defined group...

There are bad apples throughout our fishery. Focusing on one is wrong and will get you nowhere.
 
browningmirage said:
I dont live on the Fraser, and I dont know her politics. But this is clearly pointing at a single group for all that ails the BC Chinook Fishery.

I think @Rain City pointed out that none of this goes anywhere when the clearly stated mission of a group is discriminatory. And with a first post so clearly focused in on a single, clearly defined group...

There are bad apples throughout our fishery. Focusing on one is wrong and will get you nowhere.
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So are you suggesting everyone here is wrong by turning our attention toward ILLEGAL gill netting? Perhaps you have a better strategy moving forward?

I don’t look at this as a racial issue, it’s more a legal issue with the focus being on those that are breaking the law.
 
Yes it's fact there are both legal and illegal netting going on on the Fraser by the Native bands and also illegal selling of fish as well. And I use the word "legal" very loosely. Not an opinion, just facts. If the rest of the province has to have drastic measures taken against them to help the Spring Salmon population then so should all groups sharing this resource. When one group of people are given more rights, allocation and freedom to do what they want when they want then that is total and complete discrimination against all the other groups who rely on this resource as well. It has absolutely nothing to do with racism. It has to do with facts. It just happens to be that it is the Native group that is pillaging this resource beyond repair on the Fraser River, not any of the other groups. And that's just a fact. If folks don't like that then they should take that up with the Natives, not with the ones who are going to bring it to light to the rest of the population.
 
You won't even have to mention FN in a well documented piece with good video...it will be apparent just by watching who is netting endangered wild Chinook...just leave it at that. Just say we flew these drones up the Fraser River to document the killing of wild salmon that we desperately need to reach the spawning beds to repopulate the runs that support whales, bears, eagles and peoples. That is all you need to say and it is the truth...you can't get hurt!!
 
ChilliSpoons said:
So are you suggesting everyone here is wrong by turning our attention toward ILLEGAL gill netting? Perhaps you have a better strategy moving forward?

I don’t look at this as a racial issue, it’s more a legal issue with the focus being on those that are breaking the law.
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Exactly. So if it's illegal why are you ascribing a race to it.

If It's illegal. Document illegal. The first post (and subsequent ones) pointed only to "Native" fishermen. That is WRONG. Illegal is Illegal. Do NOT bring race into legal/illegal. 22 (or however many) openings that are sanctioned represent legal fishing. The discards above are not.

Document illegal fishing and report it. Leave race out of it...it has no place in these discussions.
 
browningmirage said:
Exactly. So if it's illegal why are you ascribing a race to it.

If It's illegal. Document illegal. The first post (and subsequent ones) pointed only to "Native" fishermen. That is WRONG. Illegal is Illegal. Do NOT bring race into legal/illegal. 22 (or however many) openings that are sanctioned represent legal fishing. The discards above are not.

Document illegal fishing and report it. Leave race out of it...it has no place in these discussions.
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Unless I’m wrong I’ve never heard of anyone else deploying gill nets illegally up down the Fraser River from Hope down. And then selling those fish illegally. But I’m open to being educated in regard to other groups involved in the same or similar activities.
 
ChilliSpoons said:
Unless I’m wrong I’ve never heard of anyone else deploying gill nets illegally up down the Fraser River from Hope down. And then selling those fish illegally. But I’m open to being educated in regard to other groups involved in the same or similar activities.
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You are choosing to work with two things here. 1) Legal/Illegal and 2) Race (FN vs "everyone else")

Once it's been established that something is illegal, why bring race into it? By definition, that is racist.
 
The legal openings approved by DFO need to be documented as well.

Imagine we switched Chinook with Grizzly, Spirit, Kermode, Elephant, black Rhino or other soft spots for the public and talked about killings. There would probably be protests within 24hrs.

Direct harvesting on stocks where every spawners is needed has to be in the spotlight as well. The main problem is the lower Fraser bands, almost all of the upriver FN are not taking part in any legal or illegal harvesting on these fish as they realize that every fish is needed.

Are there any other user groups within the Fraser directly harvesting endangered Chinook stocks ?


As you said BM, you know " nothing of the Fraser or her politics".
 
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ChilliSpoons said:
Unless I’m wrong I’ve never heard of anyone else deploying gill nets illegally up down the Fraser River from Hope down. And then selling those fish illegally. But I’m open to being educated in regard to other groups involved in the same or similar activities.
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I think the point that is trying to be made is that by pining the activity on a particular group, the message will inherently come off as racist/out of touch and it will alienate anyone who is sympathetic to reconciliation. The way the story is positioned needs to be cognizant of the trade winds of society right now, which are blowing pretty hard in the direction of BLM/rejection of racism (which we should all be on board for).

The brutal objective facts that there are commercial style nets hammering endangered fish and fish those are closed to other user groups, while big bar remains unresolved, should speak volumes on their own. It is a very tricky PR line to walk and a lot is to be lost forever if we do it on the wrong side.
 
The reason why First Nations are the ones illegally fishing is the courts have a standing order not to prosecute the individuals of First Nation origin.

Yes dfo can seize all there fishing gear but that’s about it.

If someone of different race went and illegal fishes they don’t have that same protections.
 
wildmanyeah said:
The reason why First Nations are the ones illegally fishing is the courts have a standing order not to prosecute the individuals of First Nation origin.

Yes dfo can seize all there fishing gear but that’s about it.

If someone of different race went and illegal fishes they don’t have that same protections.
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If this is true, then this is the most racist thing I've heard in awhile.

..go rob a bank ,if your from a certain "race" and get caught you lose your get away car, but if your from all the "others" you go to jail.

Disgraceful in the day and age...
I fully agree with what@profisher posted
 
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