I buy the fresh water license with salmon and steelhead tags for myself and my teenage kid every year. I also buy tidal water licenses with salmon tags for myself and both the kids. Each season, we take home around 7-8 chinooks and a few cohos for the freezer. I’ve been doing volunteer work for my local hatchery for the past 20 years and have been part of the school educational campaigns, river cleaning efforts on the lower mainland and also a regular donor to the habitat protection and enhancement programs. The amount of time and money that I spend on maintaining a boat, tow vehicle, gear and travel is way higher than the value of the meat. I’m not in this for the meat but I also don’t want my hard earned money and volunteer hours to feed the gil nets. If some geniuses think that C&R is the future of our fishery, they better take a short trip up the Fraser and see the blood bath themselves. Don’t try to sell that to me as the result of the shrinking resource b/c that’s a load of BS.
The return of the wild salmon stocks has been a real problem over the past 10-15 years and that’s not just for the Fraser stocks. But then DFO hasn’t done anything about conservation of the wild stocks. Closing the sports fisheries isn’t a solution. C&R is not a viable adaptation strategy. If we want to have a viable fishery in this province, we must find a way to work with the FNs. The current governance model has proven itself non effective. The minority government is hanging off of a cliff and will do anything to avoid a lawsuit. It’s up to our representatives to seek the advisory of the legal and PR experts and use a two tier strategy. Negotiate with the FNs in hope of finding a common ground while actively prepping for a lawsuit. There’s no short term solution to this, unfortunately.