Finally some good news for South VI anglers and local salmon

[Rockfish]

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/crd-land-purchase-in-sooke-a-lifeblood-for-salmon-1.2266447

Now if we can just get DFO to dump the undefendable policy of not allowing the angler supported Jack Brooks hatchery to clip Chinook. It is outrageous that the sport sector may not keep our own produced salmon through out far to much of the season because of the slot restrictions. The bureaucrats need to get their heads out of their backsides and get this fixed. We can keep marked hatchery U.S. Chinook over slot size, just not if they are our own locally produced hatchery Chinook.

 

[Fisherman Rob]

I find DFOs system of communicating limits frustratingly difficult to follow. I'll bet lots of people dont check because it's such a PITA to find, figure out, and then remember once your out there. How the heck are we supposed to know a US fish from a local fish, and where is this documented?

 

[Rockfish]

It is not a question of anglers being able to distinguish between US Hatchery Chinook and Canadian Hatchery Chinook. We only need to be able to distinguish between clipped Chinook and non-clipped Chinook. We cannot keep our own local Hatchery Chinook that are over slot limit because DFO will not let us clip them. They have their reasons but they need to find a solution to this policy which was put in place before we had creeping slot limits in the early season. At this time it would seem to me we have a bureaucracy incapable of even trying to find a solution, thinking outside the box or adapting to changing circumstances, at least when it comes to the sport sector. Before the slot size limits were forced on us it did not matter if we clipped our local hatchery Chinook, now it does.

 

[Bear]

A Salmon Commission agreement between Canada, Washington,Oregon, California and other states is that all adipose clipped fish must be nose tagged. They have been clipping and tagging fish for decades. How much more information can they find? All hatchery stock should be clipped. If a percentage are nose tagged, that can be determined when the head from a clipped fish is turned in. Time for the Salmon Commission to get with the times.

 

[UkeeDreamin]

Washington and Oregon state do not CWT all of their clipped hatchery fish. I turn in a fair number of heads from WCVI each season (put my name on my fish as well as my families and all my buddies as I'm interested in the data reports you receive back). In the last 12-15 years I have not had a single fish that has had a CWT in the submitted head. Report always comes back with a generic report showing the weighted distribution of various origins from the stocks encountered at the location in the month of capture. Early season WCVI springs are most likely from the Olympic peninsula systems or Columbia and, as I said, none are tagged.

VERY curious to know why DFO is stopping the clipping of hatchery fish if anyone has the official reasoning and can share.

Cheers!

Ukee

 

[SpringVelocity]

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/crd-land-purchase-in-sooke-a-lifeblood-for-salmon-1.2266447

Now if we can just get DFO to dump the undefendable policy of not allowing the angler supported Jack Brooks hatchery to clip Chinook. It is outrageous that the sport sector may not keep our own produced salmon through out far to much of the season because of the slot restrictions. The bureaucrats need to get their heads out of their backsides and get this fixed. We can keep marked hatchery U.S. Chinook over slot size, just not if they are our own locally produced hatchery Chinook.

This is great in south island for land protection but rest of island doesn't get same treatment. I find dfo performance for protecting salmon enhancement projects brutal to be honest. You guys have a good municipality. Look at shawnigan for example we have dump trucks right now coming up from your base in esquimalt down there dumped next to our project DFO just puts head in sand like it's not an issue. To be honest I am jealous if this. The coho in this creek are just as many as there but again not same treatment at all.

 

[Rockfish]

Bear -- If that is the rationalization I would think it must be all clipped Chinook only, not all clipped salmon must be tagged because I have helped clip many thousands of Coho and none of them to my knowledge have been tagged. So DFO and the politicians have two solutions staring them in the face.

The first is do what the Americans do and spring for some money to clip AND TAG our Hatchery Chinook. Of course this means they would have to spend some money on Pacific salmon out of their 2 Billion dollar annual budget. It is outrageous how little gets spent directly on Pacific salmon.

The second option as you point out is for the politicians to actually show some leadership and get us out of this outdated agreement that makes no sense in the current reality. We should not continue to accept a bad policy simply because that is the way it has always been done. When DFO first bowed to political expediency and forced slot restriction on south VI they should have immediately begun negotiations to change this agreement clause with the International Salmon Commission.

An 8 year old could tell them that it is beyond stupid to expect that anglers who volunteer a lot of effort and time to fund raise and produce these fish are going to resent the fact that they cannot keep them when the catch them on the water simply because they are over slot size and are not clipped. I resent the fact that sport fishermen have to do this work to the extent we do in order to scrap by and maintain our fishery and all the coastal towns and businesses that depend on it. DFO needs to make Pacific salmon their financial priority for habitat restoration and salmon enhancement. If they can’t find creative ways to free up the funds out of their 2 Billion dollar budget, I am sure anglers could rework their budgets real quick. For starters how about less paper pushers in Ottawa and a lot less tax payer funded direct and indirect corporate welfare for Norwegian fish farm corporations.

I just read Ukee’s post and it would seem the rationalization for DFO refusing to allow the clipping of Chinook may be somewhat unclear. I suspect that part of it may be that DFO does not want to spend the money on something as trivial as Pacific Salmon.