from the gillnetters FB page
Regular Thursday Barkley Harvest table meeting was help today.
No new information because we already had the extra meeting on Monday.
The FN have allocation left, but are not fishing until they see more escapement.
The Rec fleet will be moved out of the river and out of the harbour down past Lone Tree to gradually start slowing down their fishery. The Rec fleet has over 10,000 left of expected catch, and their effort will drop as people start to switch over to Chinook.
They are going to allow a pulse of water out from the dam to try and cool the water in the Somass river to try and protect the fish that are holding below the counters. It's hard to know how much water to release during sockeye, - of course any water they release now can't be release later. This pulse of water is also expected to pull some fish into the river and we should see a bump in escapement numbers, this should also coincide with a low pressure event, which may even give us a rain shower, so fingers crossed that we see some of the 140,000 plus fish that are hanging around in the canal start to head up the river.
Escapement to date is 91,000 with a target escapement for June of 85,000 and by the end of migration of 330,000. We were tracking pretty close to target in June, but the escapement in July since the heat started has been minimal.
Next meeting is next Thursday, however there is always to possibly of an extra meeting if things change. Keep an eye on the test boat,. We will be looking to see some continued good testing outside (sets over 100) and good testing inside (sets over 1000) to confirm that there are still some fish coming, and that there are still lots of fish holding.
Once the fish start to move, don't be surprised if we see some 10,000+ days of escapement. With the amount of fish holding we should see a couple weeks solid of heavy solid migration (once they start to move).
-Ryan