Commercial Troll Impact from Fraser spring/summer 52 Chinook restrictions

[ericl]

Look at the area F commercial troll opener notice from 2015 & 2016.

2015 was zone 2 with a troll quota of 117K fish
2016 is a zone 1 with a troll quota of 248K fish

Both notices opening text reference the zone restrictions to protect Fraser 52 Chinook.
So we go from zone 2 in 2015 to zone 1 in 2016 & the commercial quota more than doubles...............

 

[MadJigga]

Jim Pattison must be thrilled!

 

[bigdogeh]

makes alot of sense doesn't it.... lobbyists are doing a fine job on the commercial side.
conservation my @ss.
Pattison won't be happy till he controls or owns it all.
when's the last time you remember a recreational limit increasing? and increasing by over 50%....

 

[Whitebuck]

What is the percentage of American hatchery fish?

 

[ericl]

Here is a cut-and-paste from the fisheries notice announcing the 2015 closure for the Area F troll fishery:

"Chinook stock composition in the Area F Troll catch from DNA samples are as
follows:

Sample #1
- From 800 fish (27 vessel landings) caught between June 18th and 23rd
- 40.4% Upper Columbia Summer/fall, 20.8% South Thompson, 12.6% North & Central
Oregon, 9.3% Coastal Washington, 1.5% WCVI, 2.2% Skeena and 0.4% Nass.

Sample #2
- From 402 fish (24 vessel landings) caught between June 24th and July 1st.
- 40.1% Upper Columbia Summer/fall, 20.8% South Thompson, 12.0% North & Central
Oregon, 13.0% Coastal Washington, 0.2% WCVI, 1.0% Skeena and 0.2% Nass."


It looks like US fish are about 63%. Percentages are similar in other years.
I do not think the South Thompson fish are part of the Fraser stocks of concern.

Here is some of the text from the fisheries notice for the opening:

"The Salmon Licence Area F Individual Transferable Quota (ITQ) Chinook Troll
Fishery is currently scheduled to open at 00:01 hours, Sunday, June 21st under
the Zone 1 management objectives for Fraser 5-2 Chinook. The fishery opening
has the option of opening as early as June 15th, provided there is an in-season
upgrade to Zone 2 management. The Area F Harvest Committee has recommended
that there be a minimum of 7 days of notice prior to any change to the fishery
opening. Therefore, the management objectives for Fraser 5-2 Chinook would
need to be upgraded to Zone 2 prior to June 8th to move the Area F troll
opening forward to June 15th. Refer to a Fishery Notice released in the
following 2 weeks that will confirm the opening date."

FYI the SE Alaskan inside waters troll fishery is open from Oct1 - June 1 targeting Alaska hatchery Chinook. This fishery will close if more than 45K "treaty Chinook" are caught. I am working on finding how these "treaty Chinook" are identified. About the only method I can see is a "treaty Chinook" would be fin-clipped.
The SE Alaska outside troll fishery opens July 1.

As for quotas, the Pacific Salmon Treaty uses an abundance prediction to set catch quotas. Please note that for the Alaska inside waters winter troll fishery, all fish except the "treaty Chinook" DO NOT COUNT against the quota.
I saw some data from the wild salmon foundation showing that:

Of all Chinook caught in Alaska, only 15% are "their fish"
68% of WCVI chinook caught are caught in Alaska
15% of Alaska catch is WCVI (That could be 15% 0f 500,000+ fish)

 

[JuandeOne]

oh don't blame jimmy...he's just taking what they give him. this just further proves DFO's (unofficial) mandate to wipe out the fraser fishery.

coming to work and playing video games for 5 hours a day means too much work. nothing left to manage and their day is clear.

it is sickening what our democratic government gets away with. I thought it was about the populus.

 

[Dave H]

I thought Pattison was more into the seine fleet as owner etc. rather than into all the individual trollers you are all talking about.

I'm out of touch maybe??

I dunno.



Take care.

 

[finaddict]

Of all Chinook caught in Alaska, only 15% are "their fish"
68% of WCVI chinook caught are caught in Alaska
15% of Alaska catch is WCVI (That could be 15% 0f 500,000+ fish)

truly disgraceful and has been this way for a very long time.

 

[IronNoggin]

FYI the SE Alaskan inside waters troll fishery is open from Oct1 - June 1 targeting Alaska hatchery Chinook. This fishery will close if more than 45K "treaty Chinook" are caught.

They were wrapped up two months early this spring, and went over quota. "Incredible abundance" was what my Buddies up there passed along.

Of all Chinook caught in Alaska, only 15% are "their fish"
68% of WCVI chinook caught are caught in Alaska
15% of Alaska catch is WCVI (That could be 15% 0f 500,000+ fish)

Unfortunately it has always been that way. On the other side of the coin, we (BC) catch far more US (south of the line) origin springs than our own.

One has to seriously question the overly-inflated predictions for WCVI this year. They are based nearly completely upon the Alaskan catch rate. That was notably high for these stocks. But suggesting that is due to an increase in population size rather than their fleet simply landing on the WCVI stocks rather hard is more than a bit of a leap. Case in point: 100K springs predicted to return to the Stamp this season. Have a look at the escapement numbers that is supposed to have produced these numbers. Out to lunch comes to mind...

Cheers,
Nog

 

[ericl]

I think I have a little better understanding of the Fraser issue as it relates to the area F troll fishery:

Area F troll fishery has been opening around June 20th (this is later than in years past to protect the Fraser 52 fish)
Abundance/Zone level of these fish is determined by the Albion test fishery
The last Albion test fishery occurs too late to move the June 20th date to an earlier opening.
So The Fraser fish were at zone 2 in 2015, and at zone 1 in 2016 but the catch quota for 2016 is greater that it was for 2015.

The quota is bigger because the Chinook Abundance index is larger (more Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST)fish to be harvested). By DFO calculation, the Fraser stocks of concern will not be in Troll area F on June 20th. The Chinook Abundance is calculated by the folks on the PST Chinook Technical Committee (both US & Canadian membership).

I see a problem in all of this issue & Chinook across BC in that it APPEARS that all these decisions/allocations, etc between Alaska trollers/BC trollers (I am sure you are shocked, but sport caught Chinook numbers in both Alaska & BC pale to those of trollers) are based on Coded Wire Tag data. It appears that to the PST folks, if your Chinook are not marked/CWT, then they don't matter/exist.You can look towards the end of the document below to see which Chinook runs are/are not CWT'd.

The report below also says Alaska has overbought their share over the last several years while BC has underbought their share. There appears to be no "payback" mechanism.

http://www.psc.org/pubs/TCCHINOOK16-2.pdf


As an FYI I am a retired computer consultant, so reading/interpreting technical information is my thing. The motto of computer vendor's is a confused customer is a good customer. In reading various tech pubs from all these fisheries folks, it seems to me that great effort is expended to use obscure acronyms/definitions (like zone level instead of abundance level) making the publications useful to only a select group of insiders.

 

[ericl]

OK IronNoggin check this out:
http://wildfishconservancy.org/abou...d-fishery-chinook-catch-composition-1999-2010

It comes from a different source & presents a different look at who catches what.

I think BC has been much more cooperative about whose fish they catch than Alaska has been.

Pretty funny, we produce all the Columbia River fish that get caught up north but consumed down south. Many of the AK trollers are Seattle based - so they travel north too. Think of the energy savings of the boats staying down here & flying all those Columbia fish back down here. Maybe this issue is a "follow the money" issue & we should be paying attention to why such a ridiculous situation perpetuates.

 

[IronNoggin]

OK IronNoggin check this out:
It comes from a different source & presents a different look at who catches what.

I think BC has been much more cooperative about whose fish they catch than Alaska has been.

Interesting article, and bang=on from what I understand.

And while I do agree with your assessment re: BC vs Alaska, one has only to look at the above pie chart from the WCVI fishery to see just how much we in BC target chiefly other US origin stocks.

Cheers,
Nog

 

[finaddict]

Imagine how many chinooks would be off of Washington if BC and Alaska did not get 75% of them......

What is clear (and has been for years) is that Alaska is the worst offender, it has been well documented and acknowledged by biologists on both sides of the border many times and everyone knows it including the Alaskans. They have also stated quite emphatically over the years that they could not care less, will continue to harvest from wherever the hell they want and will make no apologies about it.

 

[TheBigGuy]

Personally I would rather see the trollers get openings rather than the net fleet. At least this is a semi selective method of harvesting. From the above reads it appears their catch limit has been increased because the abundance level of Chinooks is predicted to be high. Let's hope their predictions are true. I know everyone is stoked about the high predictions this year, but I take their predictions with a big lump of salt.

I tend to agree with iron noggin. I don't see how there's supposed to be a huge return of Stamp River fish to Port Alberni this year. The Stamp hatchery has barely made the bare minimum on escapement levels for a while now. Miraculously these low return years are supposed to translate into a huge return this year. That seems a little overly optimistic. But, because big numbers are "predicted" they're going to be unleashing the net fleet in Alberni inlet again this year. That disgusts me far more than the trollers getting a whack at these higher than normal predicted returns.