Our SFAC has been raising it for over 5 years at our meetings with DFO and its still don't get any action on marine stock assessment of Squamish Chum.
The whole Squamish river system including the Cheakamus was abysmal! Worst I have seen in 25 years of fishing the river!
Nanaimo, Cowichan and Goldstream had escapement over their target. Nanaimo had 82,000 escapement with a target of 40,000
That was exactly what I said, when I was interviewed by the reporter from the Squamish Chief for the article!
I volunteer at the Rosewall hatchery near Fanny Bay. If it's any consolation, our returns of chum were lower this year as well. I understand from others that this was common in most areas on the Coast. Of course this does, once again, beg the question about DFO allowing a commercial chum fishery...
It seems there was something that caused low chum survival along much of the coast. Chum returns had in the past several years been pretty good, but this illustrates the challenge any of our fisheries face. DFO is unable, or unwilling, to adjust exploitation rates on these fish when the inevitable un-forecasted low return year occurs. Had fisheries, sport, commercial and FN been stopped as soon as it became apparent the runs were low, the escapement may have been adequate to propagate the runs. Now this brood year return may be permanently damaged on runs where commercial/FN harvest was allowed,
