Hypocritical and hilarious

[The Fish Assassin]

stlhddan I agree with you on this one, but you might as well save your breath here with this crowd. I totally agree that a dead fish is a dead fish, it doesn't matter where you catch it, does it? or for that matter even the method is really irrelevant, and it is funny how the worst offenders are often the best guides. When I can go out and catch my guests limits day after day after day I know I am having a huge impact and that is exactly why I decided to quit guiding. Now when I fish I only fish for myself, so I can usually get all the food I need in a day or maybe 2 to make it through the winter. It is just a personal choice I have made.

Take only what you need.

 

[chris73]

No even an "AWESOME" sportfisherman as you are FA, could have had a huge impact on any salmon stocks ... as long as you stuck to rod and reel. Certainly some of you river-netting brothers did. [)]

But the point is that while the sportfishing community takes out a certain amount of salmon, it is also the highest contributor to rebuilding and supporting salmon stocks in comparison to the other stakeholders. The vast majority of hatchery volunteers and other streamkeeping/-building association members are anglers. Without their efforts nobody had many fish stories to tell anymore. If you cut off this "give and take" by the anglers then you might as well say bye to our salmon. Can we as anglers do even more to protect and rebuild? Absolutely. Can we afford to take less - certainly, in some categories and areas. Would the majority of the anglers agree to further but reasonable and critical restrictions? Absolutely, as shown many times during SFAB meetings and votes. My emphasis is on "reasonable and critical" and understandable to the anglers - not desk decisions with no reality check by bureaucrats in Ottawa. So shutting down all sportfishing makes no sense to me unless everything else has been tried and we are seeing the last few fish. The economic and environmental returns from the sportfishing community/industry are by far the greatest compared to any other usergroup while the actual impact on the stocks (even if its the mixed stock ocean sportfishing) is small.

 

[Peahead]

quote:Originally posted by chris73

No even an "AWESOME" sportfisherman as you are FA, could have had a huge impact on any salmon stocks ... as long as you stuck to rod and reel. Certainly some of you river-netting brothers did. [)]

But the point is that while the sportfishing community takes out a certain amount of salmon, it is also the highest contributor to rebuilding and supporting salmon stocks in comparison to the other stakeholders. The vast majority of hatchery volunteers and other streamkeeping/-building association members are anglers. Without their efforts nobody had many fish stories to tell anymore. If you cut off this "give and take" by the anglers then you might as well say bye to our salmon. Can we as anglers do even more to protect and rebuild? Absolutely. Can we afford to take less - certainly, in some categories and areas. Would the majority of the anglers agree to further but reasonable and critical restrictions? Absolutely, as shown many times during SFAB meetings and votes. My emphasis is on "reasonable and critical" and understandable to the anglers - not desk decisions with no reality check by bureaucrats in Ottawa. So shutting down all sportfishing makes no sense to me unless everything else has been tried and we are seeing the last few fish. The economic and environmental returns from the sportfishing community/industry are by far the greatest compared to any other usergroup while the actual impact on the stocks (even if its the mixed stock ocean sportfishing) is small.

I agree fully . While shutting down or limiting fishing in certain areas for all sectors is necessary, may I remind everyone ( as Chris 73 points out) that the recreational sector has the least impact on stocks as compared to other sectors... less than 1% (as I understand) Shutting down a sector that takes a tiny fraction of the fish for a much greater contribution to the economy doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

 

[profisher]

The true annual recreational catch of any species of fish is not known. It is a best guess based on limited interviews and fly overs. Until the recreational catch is better monitored and provable data is obtained there will always be doubt fro the other sectors as to our true impact. It is in our best interest to insist to DFO that better ways of collecting accurate catch data is found and implemented asap!!! The same is true of the FN in river catch as no one knows how many illegal nets are being fished outside of openings. With accurate data comes the ability to properly manage and fix many of the present issues.

 

[chris73]

Agree profisher that better data would help if DFO actually had the intention to find out the truth about what's going on with our salmon. I disrespectfully argue that DFO has not this intention but rather want to cover up and hide things. And it would be simple to collect data about the legal recreational catch by just gathering the licences at year end. Illegal catch you will never know for sure - recreational or native or whatever. You will always have to estimate it while trying to minimize through inforcement.