Going to see the Herring Spawn around Bella Bella...

[Andrew P]

Hey Folks,

I'm taking an interesting vacation this spring. My super awesome business partner gave me (and himself) a great Christmas/Birthday present; cashed in some airmiles to book us for a trip for a week April 1-7 (birthday is april 4th) to Bella Bella to go hang with a friend, Ian McAllister, of PacificWild.org. One of their areas of study is the herring spawn. They set up remote cameras, do lots of diving, etc. I'm stoked to get dragged around by Ian to do what ever for a week.

It could also be a very interesting to see what happens this year for a commercial roe opening...it got heated last year right in the time period that I will be there this year. I very strongly feel a need complete reform of herring management on the BC Coast and will use the opportunity of this trip to further that movement.

Without herring...everything else crumbles.

 

[jeffywestcoast]

Sounds like an awesome experience, maybe you can design a new Herring spoon to boot Enjoy , it is beautiful up there !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rum Buddies]

awesome - good for you Andrew. Have you considered writing about the experience, maybe an Op-ed piece you could pitch to the papers? As a business owner of a well known shop you have instant clout, wouldn't be that hard to get it published.

 

[Andrew P]

Hey Chinooky....I was of course worried about being a tad late. That said....you seem to be confidently claiming the timing, so how sure are you of this? I have studied a fair bit of data from around the province and tried to correlate with the moon phase and couldn't draw any hard conclusion like that. It seems the spawn is somewhat like a domino effect making it's way down the inside coast of the island with spawning events happening all over the lunar cycle. I don't know too much about the Central Coast though. Date could be changed if need be....

 

[Redfisher]

Having fished herring via gillnet in the central coast for many years I am more in line with Chinooky's timing. We were usually done in the central area before the end of March.

 

[Andrew P]

Thanks Chinooky, good to know.

I based the timing somewhat on this chart....
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/scienc...gique/herring-hareng/herspawn/073fig-eng.html





And Poppa Swiss....I do plan on documenting the experience including a stab at writing about it.

 

[Capt_Ed]

I also fished them both gilnet and seine in the central coast from 1976 to 2004. The last few years we also did the dive spawn survey for DFO. More often than not the spawn would be over by the first week of April making it clear for the divers to count the roe concentration.

 

[Charter Tofino]

Wicked trip, that'll be a blast! I look forward to the pics and story. Ian always gets awesome shots of the spawn.

Agreed on the fishery being outdated. We should know better than to fish a keystone species. Not to mention herring aren't even utilized efficiently in most cases.

 

[Whole in the Water]

awesome - good for you Andrew. Have you considered writing about the experience, maybe an Op-ed piece you could pitch to the papers? As a business owner of a well known shop you have instant clout, wouldn't be that hard to get it published.

\

I agree, our over harvested herring need all the help they can get!

 

[KatieB]

Andrew P your welcome. Last year the new moon was Mar. 1 and on Mar. 4 the spawn seemed to start rite off the Point Holmes boat launch, where I and my buddy and his family went out and caught a bunch in the afternoon, lots of fun and the kids had a blast.

I had never witnessed this before last year and it was quite an awesome sight. Sat on the beach at Point Holmes for a while and watched the chaos. Counted over 40 commercial boats fishing this last year and my thoughts were that it was amazing that anything hit the beach and had a chance to spawn. How silly it is that we harvest this species the way that we do when we know how important it is for the rest of our ecosystem. I will be more prepared for it this year and will get my bait for the year from the ocean instead of buying it throughout the year.

 

[Hali killer]

You might be a little late or at the tail end of it, the spawn usually starts around 3 days after the new moon, and the new moon is on the 20th of March this year. The spawn will happen around Feb 21 in Comox Valley waters this year, as the new moon is Feb 18th. But hey, it sounds like it will be a fun and interesting trip, wouldn't mind doing that too.

Do you have any lotto numbers for me?

 

[Derby]

perhaps a ghost of the past has showed up again...

 

[Sangstercraft]

How silly it is that we harvest this species the way that we do when we know how important it is for the rest of our ecosystem.

I met a guy in French Creek who fishes krill in Jervis Inlet. He said they haul out tons, fishing at night. Talk about going for the bottom of the food chain. But ideally we'd all be eating lower on the food chain anyways. The problem is when our 'local' resource gets shipped to Asia to feed their over-populated countries. There is NO end in sight for demand. I hate restrictions but we'll need more and more restrictions as our population grows.

 

[hambone]

Off topic, but there's a herring opening in Nanaimo in the next few days. I have no idea if they're spawning but I would assume there's a few around for an opening??

 

[Cuba Libre]

It is most likely what they call a Food and Bait Fishery, and not for Roe.

yup.......... the fish are too immature for the roe that Japan wants.

 

[Andrew P]

The current fishery off Nanaimo, I have been told, is taking on "local non-migratory herring" or "homesteader herring" against DFO's own rules. By law, all Canadian fisheries must now have a "stock assessment." The population being harvested has not had a stock assessment and therefore illegal. DFO breaking their own rules.

This will be a herring season to remember all across the coast. Heated and ripe for change.

 

[KatieB]

This will be a herring season to remember all across the coast. Heated and ripe for change.

We can always hope. Was an amazing sight to see when it happened. Enjoy your trip and hope you get lucky and see something cool.

 

[Cuba Libre]

That has been happening forever..... certainly not a waste. Nutrients feed everything from phytoplankton to fish. There are many areas that herring use for spawning that are devoid of kelp. Rocks, wharfs, old pilings , boats etc that dont have antifouling goop will do. Overfishing is a bigger issue for herring stocks than substrate. In fact over spawning (layering) when there are multiple spawn occurrences, results in major mortality to the first laid eggs.

The removal of kelp and other subtidal "plants" for human purposes is never the less something that can greatly negatively affect other species that use the area for home. Can that be sustainable? Well it seems so because they have been harvesting seaweed for centuries in many areas world. it seems to be a matter of scale....