Commercial sector on saving Steelhead

[OldBlackDog]

BC Salmon Gillnetters Association​

Barry Crow · ·


If gill net fishing destroys SH runs? Can you imagine being in the room when our brilliant overlords were making the plan to save IFSH? Imagine you were the highly educated person ( I am assuming some form of University education) wham the light goes on for you...thats it will close the approach areas 150 miles from the mouth of the river! You can just see the the others in the room Yes, Yes what a great idea! Let me bust the bubble of stupidity.
So doing some digging at the recent Area 23 Round table meeting, I cornered the hatchery manager to find out what they are doing with SH enhancement at the Robertson creek hatchery. Turns out they try to make 100K SH fry. They release them between 45-60 grams. Fun fact he is only allowed to collect the eggs from WILD SH parents. I do not know what the wild production of SH smolts is. So can anyone tell me why there is not a 150 mile rolling closure window to protect Barkley SH? Am I stupid in assuming if gill nets destroyed SH returns would not Barkley Sound SH be in a world of hurt with all the commercial gill net, and seine fisheries? Dont forget to include the outside FSC fisheries and the in river EO fisheries. Something really stinks about the JS rolling closure for SH! Clearly if commercial fishing was the culprit for loss of IFSH the Barkley run of SH would have disappeared long ago. As fisherman we have to differ to authority as anyone does in any walk of life for without some form of order... its all chaos. I think fisherman try there best to allow authority to do what is best for all. When authority comes up with ******** we have the right to call a spade a spade. The JS rolling closure is ********. That closure will not save a single SH and while some overlords play "look at me all the amazing things I am doing" real people (me) are being put in the poor house for a fantasy experiment. I don't play politics but with the current treatment the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is displaying towards West Coast fisherman you would have to be a sucker for punishment to reelect them. My God, when did they announce with all the fan fair the PSSI program? We are now 2 weeks away from opening in Barkley...not a single word about the buy back. What total disrespect for the hard working tax paying citizens who in there everyday actions are the real people who make Canada a spectacular place to be.
Barry Crow Area D HC

 

[onefish]

My buddy is an area f troller ( north coast ). He put in for the buy back in February and was told he would hear something by the end of march. Here it is, June 1st ish and he has not heard a peep and his other fishing buddies have also not heard a peep. He has to assume he will be fishing so he is busy getting ready for another season. DFO in their wisdom have not told the guys when the season starts, what the boundaries are or what they are allowed to catch. God damn useless is DFO. Some things never change, if anything it is worse than ever.

 

[IronNoggin]

BC Salmon Gillnetters Association​

Barry Crow · ·
Am I stupid in assuming if gill nets destroyed SH returns would not Barkley Sound SH be in a world of hurt with all the commercial gill net, and seine fisheries?

Am I stupid to assume this particular fool knows nothing about the very sad state of Stamp Steelhead?

The very matter he bemoans happened years ago...

Sheesh!

 

[searun]

We get the same rhetoric at the A23 Harvest Round Table. Been trying to open discussion around improving our knowledge (data) about where and when steelhead are encountered in all the fisheries (rec, commercial, FN) in an attempt to position us to do far better fishery planning. If we have robust data on run timing and summer run SH encounters in the sockeye fishery, that would position us to plan fisheries to be more surgical in avoiding those encounters. Not much traction being gained due to this sort of digging heads into the sand hoping the rec guys will stop bringing up SH interceptions. I guess they want to wait until we have an actual summer run SH crisis in the Stamp and then cry foul rather than be proactive. The Prov SH Biologist noted that the summer run picture was actually very good - that took a lot of heat off the Table to dig in and start capturing data on encounters. So we are back to no problem, no proactive action necessary type of thinking. Difficult to position the Table to make informed future fishery management decisions in this environment. Exactly how we got into the Interior Fraser SH crisis.

 

[wildmanyeah]

I guess they want to wait until we have an actual summer run SH crisis in the Stamp and then cry foul rather than be proactive.

delay and call for status quo, Then when thing goes sideways blame DFO for mismanagement, meanwhile dfo was following stakeholders advice,

sounds about right