For you guys out there that absolutely insist on ordering wild salmon this is for you.
PACIFIC SALMON
DFO leaves sport angler reeling
Fishing guide says Ottawa bowing to commercial trollers, depleting salmon stock
MARK HUME
mhume@globeandmail.com
E-mail Mark Hume | Read Bio | Latest Columns
August 25, 2008
VANCOUVER -- You can hear the tension crackling in Walter Schoenfelder's voice as he calls from the deck of one of his boats, using a client's satellite phone.
Mr. Schoenfelder is a salmon fishing guide and the operator of Quatsino Lodge, a beautiful fishing resort he built with the help of friends and family on the rugged northwest coast of Vancouver Island.
Out there on the bright blue water, where grey whales surface next to the boat and gulls wheel over schools of bait fish, Mr. Schoenfelder should be kicked back in the captain's chair, with the folded green mountains of Vancouver Island behind him and a relaxed grin on his face.
Instead he is pacing the deck, giving a tense interview over the phone to a reporter in Vancouver.
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"I can't believe what's happening out here!" he says. "It's outrageous. They are destroying our salmon stocks."
The "they" Mr. Schoenfelder is talking about is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the federal bureaucracy that is supposed to be rebuilding British Columbia's salmon runs with leading-edge fisheries management.
Instead, Mr. Schoenfelder, and a growing number of others in B.C., fear that Ottawa is kowtowing to the commercial fishing industry, and in the process is shepherding Pacific salmon stocks to the same disastrous end as Atlantic cod.
Are our salmon really being managed out of existence?
As he trolls the increasingly barren waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Mr. Schoenfelder fears that's the case.
What's got him going on this bright August morning is not the fact that, once again, his clients are having a tough time catching a Chinook, but rather that, all around him, a fleet of commercial fishing boats is stripping the seas of the few fish available.
On Vancouver Island's west coast, salmon are in such short supply that the commercial trolling fleet has generally been restricted from fishing in the summer months, which is high season for sports anglers.
To protect endangered stocks of salmon bound for Vancouver Island rivers, many inlets are closed to sports anglers in the summer.
When a commercial opening does happen, the sports fleet and the trollers can find themselves pushed together on the same water, about eight kilometres offshore.
Neither group has had great fishing this summer. In a three-day August opening, 57 commercial trollers took a total of about 9,000 Chinook - well short of an allotted catch of 10,000 fish.
Mr. Schoenfelder's clients meanwhile were lucky to catch one fish each over the same period and often were going from dawn to dusk without getting a single strike.
Mr. Schoenfelder calls this being forced to fish "under the boom," because his small sports boats, with two lines out, find themselves trolling behind commercial boats dragging 60 lures from boomsticks.
Mr. Schoenfelder learned last week that the commercial fleet is expecting to get another opening in the area, for several days next month, because they caught so few fish in August.
With stocks declining, DFO is increasing the commercial pressure, he says.
"This is crazy. ... They are targeting a depleted fish stock ... [and] it is killing my business."
Instead of giving the commercial trollers more time on the water, DFO should be restricting them, says Mr. Schoenfelder, so that sport fishery - which is more lucrative and has a lower impact - can enjoy at least a modestly successful season.
Kathy Scarfo, president of the commercial West Coast Trollers Association, disagrees.
She thinks sport lodges are just as "commercial" as her fleet and she wants both sectors to have equal opportunities to fish.
"There seems to be a sense that because we have not fished much in the last eight years in the summer ... we are not allowed into what is now seen as an exclusive sport-charter fishing time, period!" she said in an e-mail.
She says commercial boats were shut down in June and July while sports anglers continued to fish, and the fleet now deserves a September opportunity to catch up.
"Why the hell are they complaining?" she asks of the resort operators. "They are open seven days a week."
That may be true. But during those seven days, the sports boats are catching almost nothing and when the commercial fleet moves in to compete for the few fish that are available, it is pretty tough to take.
No wonder Mr. Schoenfelder is angry.
And it's not just a season he fears is slipping away, but also a way of life.
"I want my grandkids to fish, but I wonder if they will be able to," he says.
PACIFIC SALMON
DFO leaves sport angler reeling
Fishing guide says Ottawa bowing to commercial trollers, depleting salmon stock
MARK HUME
mhume@globeandmail.com
E-mail Mark Hume | Read Bio | Latest Columns
August 25, 2008
VANCOUVER -- You can hear the tension crackling in Walter Schoenfelder's voice as he calls from the deck of one of his boats, using a client's satellite phone.
Mr. Schoenfelder is a salmon fishing guide and the operator of Quatsino Lodge, a beautiful fishing resort he built with the help of friends and family on the rugged northwest coast of Vancouver Island.
Out there on the bright blue water, where grey whales surface next to the boat and gulls wheel over schools of bait fish, Mr. Schoenfelder should be kicked back in the captain's chair, with the folded green mountains of Vancouver Island behind him and a relaxed grin on his face.
Instead he is pacing the deck, giving a tense interview over the phone to a reporter in Vancouver.
Print Edition - Section Front
Enlarge Image
"I can't believe what's happening out here!" he says. "It's outrageous. They are destroying our salmon stocks."
The "they" Mr. Schoenfelder is talking about is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the federal bureaucracy that is supposed to be rebuilding British Columbia's salmon runs with leading-edge fisheries management.
Instead, Mr. Schoenfelder, and a growing number of others in B.C., fear that Ottawa is kowtowing to the commercial fishing industry, and in the process is shepherding Pacific salmon stocks to the same disastrous end as Atlantic cod.
Are our salmon really being managed out of existence?
As he trolls the increasingly barren waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island, Mr. Schoenfelder fears that's the case.
What's got him going on this bright August morning is not the fact that, once again, his clients are having a tough time catching a Chinook, but rather that, all around him, a fleet of commercial fishing boats is stripping the seas of the few fish available.
On Vancouver Island's west coast, salmon are in such short supply that the commercial trolling fleet has generally been restricted from fishing in the summer months, which is high season for sports anglers.
To protect endangered stocks of salmon bound for Vancouver Island rivers, many inlets are closed to sports anglers in the summer.
When a commercial opening does happen, the sports fleet and the trollers can find themselves pushed together on the same water, about eight kilometres offshore.
Neither group has had great fishing this summer. In a three-day August opening, 57 commercial trollers took a total of about 9,000 Chinook - well short of an allotted catch of 10,000 fish.
Mr. Schoenfelder's clients meanwhile were lucky to catch one fish each over the same period and often were going from dawn to dusk without getting a single strike.
Mr. Schoenfelder calls this being forced to fish "under the boom," because his small sports boats, with two lines out, find themselves trolling behind commercial boats dragging 60 lures from boomsticks.
Mr. Schoenfelder learned last week that the commercial fleet is expecting to get another opening in the area, for several days next month, because they caught so few fish in August.
With stocks declining, DFO is increasing the commercial pressure, he says.
"This is crazy. ... They are targeting a depleted fish stock ... [and] it is killing my business."
Instead of giving the commercial trollers more time on the water, DFO should be restricting them, says Mr. Schoenfelder, so that sport fishery - which is more lucrative and has a lower impact - can enjoy at least a modestly successful season.
Kathy Scarfo, president of the commercial West Coast Trollers Association, disagrees.
She thinks sport lodges are just as "commercial" as her fleet and she wants both sectors to have equal opportunities to fish.
"There seems to be a sense that because we have not fished much in the last eight years in the summer ... we are not allowed into what is now seen as an exclusive sport-charter fishing time, period!" she said in an e-mail.
She says commercial boats were shut down in June and July while sports anglers continued to fish, and the fleet now deserves a September opportunity to catch up.
"Why the hell are they complaining?" she asks of the resort operators. "They are open seven days a week."
That may be true. But during those seven days, the sports boats are catching almost nothing and when the commercial fleet moves in to compete for the few fish that are available, it is pretty tough to take.
No wonder Mr. Schoenfelder is angry.
And it's not just a season he fears is slipping away, but also a way of life.
"I want my grandkids to fish, but I wonder if they will be able to," he says.