DFO Closed Areas
- Thread starter terrin
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CBsqrd
Well-Known Member
Eden Island
Well-Known Member
Lowrance installed all the RCAs on their charts several years ago - they show as dashed red lines. I haven't checked to see if they are keeping up with SRKW closed areas.
Of course the Pacific Fishery Management Area Regulations and exact demarkation lines would be on the Justice Laws website.
Dumb question.
There have been no changes to the Boundries since 2007 ?
Now I am not the brightest guy going,(my wife just nodded), but after decades of dealing with the Feds with regards to regulations in my work nothing surprises me any more.
If someone has taken the time to go into this much detail with Long/Lat, it is obviously for enforcement purposes, and Justice wants the cases to be clear cut .
"The accused was stopped at Long/Lat which was 400 metres inside the prohibited fisheries line and at the time of our interaction with the subject vessel
I am guessing that the DFO vessels must have all of this information uploaded into their charts,
If that is in fact correct then it begs the question why doesn't the DFO/tooth Fairy/Santa Claus make those files availalbe to be uploaded by sport fishermen for all of the electronic charting programs ?
Or better yet send that data to Garmin, Furuno, etc. and let them sell it back to us for a few bucks
I am thinking a lot of folks would gladly pay to have that information right on their Chart Plotter.
Am I missing something really obvious here?
Hopefully someone will point me to the place where all of that data can be uploaded is one gurgling stream of bits and bites to my plotter.
Eden Island
Well-Known Member
See my post yesterday. DFO made the files freely available to Navionics and they've been on their charts for some years. See earlier threads:
- https://sportfishingbc.com/threads/how-to-put-rcas-on-my-lowrance.66315/page-2
- https://sportfishingbc.com/threads/rockfish-conservation-areas-now-on-navionics-charts.68283/
Last edited:
CBsqrd
Well-Known Member
The DFO / feds have made this information freely available, that's why it's available on Navionics. This has nothing to do with Navico (Lowrance / Simrad / B&G), Furuno - or Raymarine or Hummingbird for that matter - those companies don't provide the charts, they just license charts from CMAP or Navionics to use on their machines.
Up until 6 - 7 years ago, Navionics had the most market share and was available on most brands. That changed when Garmin acquired Navionics. For the first couple years they still provided Navionics charting to the other third party manufacturers, but this has been stopping as the new generation units have been coming out. I'm not sure if it is because Garmin wants to encourage people to switch to them, or if the other manufacturers don't want to be paying licensing fees to a competitor (likely a combination of both), but most are switching to CMAP now.
I expect CMAP hasn't updated their charts with the DFO data as our market is just too small for them. Maybe if the SFI or DFO made a case then CMAP would update. I expect it would be fairly simple to upload the coordinates and draw the boundary lines.
The areas - SRKW, glass sponge reefs, RCAs - are all available on the Navionics app. Easiest $30 a year I've spent on boating.
Eden Island
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the correction - I had just updated my post to say Navionics rather than Lowrance and give the links of previous threads on this topic. The older thread demonstrates how easy it was to get DFO to make the data available and Navionics to add it to their charting - both parties entirely willing as soon as someone asked.
The easiest way often is to plot areas on your chartplotter is to import *.GPX, or *.KML/KMZ files onto your chartplotter. That method works irrespective of chartplotter type or base charts. I can't find anywhere on the web where our well-paid public employees in DFO ever made the attempt to create & post such files for public download. All I could find is a now expired Google site that apparently once had RCAs: https://sites.google.com/site/rockfishconservationareas/
Eden Island
Well-Known Member
I don't think subareas are there, but my experience with DFO and Navionics is that they want to be helpful. I don't have time to do this right now, but I can pass my contacts to someone who does.
CBsqrd
Well-Known Member
The sub area GPS coordinates are in the link @Eden Island provided above. A copy and paste into Excel with some clean up and it would be ready to convert to a .GPX file to upload to your chart plotter. There are free sites what will convert from .xlsx and .txt to .GPX.
The FishingBC app is free and does a good job of telling you what sub area you are in, even when you are out of cell coverage.
I bought a Furuno and the boudaries are not marked on the chart.
CBsqrd
Well-Known Member
Nor would they be. Furuno uses CMAP charting.
My old TZT14 had the option of also using Navionics charts, but this was before Navionics added the DFO RCAs, SRKW area and glass sponge reefs, so they weren't marked on there. Garmin and previous generation Navico chart plotters using Navionics Platinum+ showed the areas, as does the app on my phone.
Sir Reel
Well-Known Member
The fishing boundaries and closures have been on my Garmin charts for a long time but very tough to see as they look similar to ferry routes, power lines etc.
On my Garmin GPSMap 1242 I can create boundaries of any colour. So I outline all the fishing areas in a thick green line. It shows up really well. Case in point, we were fishing off Renfrew this summer. My wife was driving and yelled we are going to hit a boundary! I’m like what? Look at the chart. Big green line ahead. Hard to port!
Next time I’m on the boat will take a screen shot of what it looks like.
Hopefully in the future we can toggle these boundaries off and on or adjust the size and colour of the line.
This is off my Active Captain on the iPad.
On my Garmin GPSMap 1242 I can create boundaries of any colour. So I outline all the fishing areas in a thick green line. It shows up really well. Case in point, we were fishing off Renfrew this summer. My wife was driving and yelled we are going to hit a boundary! I’m like what? Look at the chart. Big green line ahead. Hard to port!
Next time I’m on the boat will take a screen shot of what it looks like.
Hopefully in the future we can toggle these boundaries off and on or adjust the size and colour of the line.
This is off my Active Captain on the iPad.
ship happens
Crew Member
Time zero ( c-map) said they might include it in an option within their framework when they do subscription based charting. Which they started on with the TZ iboat app. It's basically an app version of nobletec that is primarily a professional computer grade software program. With added layers and modules. Which I'm sure you already know. Not sure if it's an option yet for. However last time I spoke with them I did raise the question as to why they don't offer it in their charting. They said it's a real pain in the arse. They said it's alot of red tape and dealing with the feds on the data is a job in itself. They also noted that its a liability issue and it's forever changing. So they would have to do yearly updates, and no one is excited about the framework process and management. Turns out.
Eden Island
Well-Known Member
Definitely wasn't the attitude when Navionics did it in 2017. Once they connected with DFO it happened in a couple of days.
ship happens
Crew Member
Let me contact DFO and get these proposals wrapped up. Talk to ya in a couple days when it's done
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