Hey Nog, did you used to fish the socks on the trollers?
Yes. We used to fish both the Inlet on Alberni stocks, as well as the West Coast for Fraser fish.
How well did they fair in that fishery, were they sucessfull and efficient, could they make money at it?
They did well, especially so when the Fraser fish came down the outside of the Island. It was one of the "backbone" fisheries for the fleet, many a season was carried by the sockeye openings for much of the fleet.
Do you know why they (trollers) no longer have acccess to the Sockey fishery?
Politics. Back when the notion of "
sockeye equivalents" and percentage splitting was initially being considered, the now defunct Pacific Troll Association (PTA - largely comprised of Gulf Trollers) bought in to the process. Many of Area G were in opposition, but it was carried regardless. That same many today shake their heads over what they consider to having been "
Sold Out".
The chinook fishery at the time was lucrative as Gamechanger noted above, and managed to carry most crews along for years following. Area G did not however sign off on forgoing sockeye completely. That occurred through rolling access reductions over a period of years until it got to where we are today - in effect complete loss of that access. In "
years of abundance" Area G is still on the books as having access. Given what happened with the Fraser's mighty blip when that last incredible run showed - a bonanza for all BUT Area G kept OFF them - methinks it is entirely unlikely that Area G will ever see another opening on sockeye again.
Today, the chinook fishery is almost done. Extremely limited openings with low harvest numbers. Without access to other stocks, unfortunately Area G is following suit, and is almost finished itself. Deliberate action on the part of "management" to drive Area G Members into a lowball "
Buy-Back" program has crippled the fleet and forced many in desperation to walk away. It has indeed become the "
Sunset Industry" many feared it was degenerating to.
I have always looked at the Sockey fishery and felt that Trolling would be a way more proactive method of harvesting when fishing (especially out in the sound) in and amongst other salmon species (bycatch), it would have a lower impact upon the bycatch (that have to be released because of no retention), no??? or yes???
Absolutely.
I find that the use of gill nets when there is a definate probability of hitting bycatch, is absolutely assanine, because it is going to kill the bycatch. Seiners are a bit of a different story, it is less damaging if done right, if not then it can do in a lot of the bycatch also. That being said, what sort of mortality do they typically get on the trollers with the bycatch?
Any bag fishery will have a higher bycatch mortality rate than trolling - simply the nature of the beast. Bycatch studies conducted with Area G specifically (I was directly involved with a couple of these) indicated a hooking mortality range running from ~ 3 to 5 %. Trolling has been well proven to be
THE most
selective method of any of the gear types.
I know that we are getting off the thread topic here, sorry, but the socks are SLOWWWWW to done.
Perhaps not. The heat wave of late has slowed the frantic pace of freshwater migration off by quite a bit. There are some indications that the sockeye are now starting to school and hold in the Inlet as supported by decent numbers of recreational rigs limiting out in some of the traditional holding areas of late. IF the numbers hold to the projections, we can likely look forward to several weeks of decent to good fishing on them as the heat wave continues.
Nog
