Herring roe fishery

[chevyshaulass]

oh the old, if we don’t kill them someone else will argument. From a Biomass of 216k a few years ago, 86k last year to 70k this year. How much will there be next year? and the following year?

I am not saying close the fishery completely, but maybe they should dial it back a little bit.

p.s. prawn bait is typically tuna.

How did you get any of that from what I said? youre really reaching on this one. i'll try and clarify it one more time. Aquaculture pellets (exact same thing as prawn bait pellets)are just one of dozens of things this herring is used for. If they didn't use it, it would simply just get used in another way. Unfortunately its not up to me to decide these things. As for biomass, come on man, another stale argument. Sick of all the crying about this, you people wouldn't be happy unless the biomass continually peaked year after year but guess what? that's not how things work. Fluctuations in runs sizes due to a million contributing factors from one year to the next are par for the course for almost every ocean dwelling species, but you knew that already im sure. maybe go back further than 3 years and youll clearly see its peaks and valleys and this years smaller run forecast is nothing to get twisted panties over, quite the opposite if comparing to last year seeing as this year had wayyyy more large fish. These generic over-simplified arguments are exactly what the NGO's love to feed to their band of muppets because it sounds so scary on paper. Oh and some more good news, more fish being found every day out there, more heavy spawns with little or no fishing pressure. DFO probably wont revise this at this point but from the people ive talked to on the surveying side seem to think the 70k number was extremely conservative there could be well over 90,000 tons in the gulf as we speak.

 

[fish4all]

How did you get any of that from what I said? youre really reaching on this one. i'll try and clarify it one more time. Aquaculture pellets (exact same thing as prawn bait pellets)are just one of dozens of things this herring is used for. If they didn't use it, it would simply just get used in another way. Unfortunately its not up to me to decide these things. As for biomass, come on man, another stale argument. Sick of all the crying about this, you people wouldn't be happy unless the biomass continually peaked year after year but guess what? that's not how things work. Fluctuations in runs sizes due to a million contributing factors from one year to the next are par for the course for almost every ocean dwelling species, but you knew that already im sure. maybe go back further than 3 years and youll clearly see its peaks and valleys and this years smaller run forecast is nothing to get twisted panties over, quite the opposite if comparing to last year seeing as this year had wayyyy more large fish. These generic over-simplified arguments are exactly what the NGO's love to feed to their band of muppets because it sounds so scary on paper. Oh and some more good news, more fish being found every day out there, more heavy spawns with little or no fishing pressure. DFO probably wont revise this at this point but from the people ive talked to on the surveying side seem to think the 70k number was extremely conservative there could be well over 90,000 tons in the gulf as we speak.

I’m looking forward to the spawn report. This was one of the largest spawns we have seen in a long time.
As for the value of the fishery 50-60 million direct sales.

 

[fogged in]

I’m looking forward to the spawn report. This was one of the largest spawns we have seen in a long time.
As for the value of the fishery 50-60 million direct sales.

Wow...what was the price per ton???

 

[fish4all]

"If the quality is not good enough we pull the nets and leave the fish"
If DFO are working on a 20% harvest rate and there are not enough "quality" Herring of a suitable age to satisfy the overseas Roe market how does Harvesting as much of the suitable "quality" Herring as possible fit into the science?
The older Herring are the best spawners, right?
The overall abundance is declining, right? (some would say at an alarming rate)

Not exactly. Some of the heaviest spawning we have seen is from 3yr olds.
Before this season started the charter vessels sounded 65,000+ tons. Had the vessels not sounded and tested a reasonable amount of fish of good quality the fishery would not have opened.

 

[fish4all]

Wow...what was the price per ton???

last year our price for gillnet was 2800-2900 per ton. This year we are expecting a significant price increase as Sitka stood down due to juvenile fish so the market will be very short. Unfortunately prices are not set until Late July. That being said the companies did give a reasonable down payment already which they did not do last year.

 

[searun]

F4all... I admire your patience for trying to provide factual information. It doesn't seem to matter how good the spawn was, nor does it seem to matter that 20%ER is based on a total harvest number that shifts based on abundance (gosh, 20% of 100 units is 20; and 20% of 50 units is half that....ahhh ohhh 10 units). Let's not let logic get in the way of emotion and a good story. It seems we are not really thinking about the result of our demands....no, let's just shut it down and toss a few more families on the streets, commercial fishing jobs are dirty jobs and they just don't matter...let's all go work at Starbucks those are good green economy jobs. Sustainable fishing is now somehow a dirty thing....what's next! Let's just close down the economy and see how we like it when no one has cash to buy their cafe late.

 

[littlechucky]

F4all... I admire your patience for trying to provide factual information. It doesn't seem to matter how good the spawn was, nor does it seem to matter that 20%ER is based on a total harvest number that shifts based on abundance (gosh, 20% of 100 units is 20; and 20% of 50 units is half that....ahhh ohhh 10 units). Let's not let logic get in the way of emotion and a good story. It seems we are not really thinking about the result of our demands....no, let's just shut it down and toss a few more families on the streets, commercial fishing jobs are dirty jobs and they just don't matter...let's all go work at Starbucks those are good green economy jobs. Sustainable fishing is now somehow a dirty thing....what's next! Let's just close down the economy and see how we like it when no one has cash to buy their cafe late.

We are currently experimenting with shutting down the economy.

We will see how it goes.

 

[fogged in]

The Seine quota below is stated as 2, 024,75 tons and the harvest as 7,071.509 tons
Is this a typo error, am I reading it wrong, or was the Seine quota more than tripled mid season based on DFO fly overs and soundings?
The total DFO bio mass estimate ended up at 75,000 tons. "FN0249-COMMERCIAL - Herring - Roe: Strait of Georgia - Update March 15, 2020
TOTAL STRAIT OF GEORGIA: ~75,000 tons (peak estimate)"
COMMERCIAL FISHERY SUMMARY
"As described in FN0212 the Strait of Georgia roe herring seine fishery closed at 9:00am March 7. Validated catch is
7,071.509 tons of the 2,024.75 ton quota."
"As described in FN0261 the Strait of Georgia roe herring gillnet fishery closed at 18:00 hours March 17. Validated catch is
7,067.011 tons of the 7,215.25 ton quota."

I am assuming this summary does not include the total harvest. ie. bait fishery, native kelp etc. and would like to know what was the final quota for the total herring fishery.

 

[SpringVelocity]

F4all... I admire your patience for trying to provide factual information. It doesn't seem to matter how good the spawn was, nor does it seem to matter that 20%ER is based on a total harvest number that shifts based on abundance (gosh, 20% of 100 units is 20; and 20% of 50 units is half that....ahhh ohhh 10 units). Let's not let logic get in the way of emotion and a good story. It seems we are not really thinking about the result of our demands....no, let's just shut it down and toss a few more families on the streets, commercial fishing jobs are dirty jobs and they just don't matter...let's all go work at Starbucks those are good green economy jobs. Sustainable fishing is now somehow a dirty thing....what's next! Let's just close down the economy and see how we like it when no one has cash to buy their cafe late.

Agree

 

[chevyshaulass]

The Seine quota below is stated as 2, 024,75 tons and the harvest as 7,071.509 tons
Is this a typo error, am I reading it wrong, or was the Seine quota more than tripled mid season based on DFO fly overs and soundings?
The total DFO bio mass estimate ended up at 75,000 tons. "FN0249-COMMERCIAL - Herring - Roe: Strait of Georgia - Update March 15, 2020
TOTAL STRAIT OF GEORGIA: ~75,000 tons (peak estimate)"
COMMERCIAL FISHERY SUMMARY
"As described in FN0212 the Strait of Georgia roe herring seine fishery closed at 9:00am March 7. Validated catch is
7,071.509 tons of the 2,024.75 ton quota."
"As described in FN0261 the Strait of Georgia roe herring gillnet fishery closed at 18:00 hours March 17. Validated catch is
7,067.011 tons of the 7,215.25 ton quota."

I am assuming this summary does not include the total harvest. ie. bait fishery, native kelp etc. and would like to know what was the final quota for the total herring fishery.

for the gulf fishery the seine quota was caught, within 25 tons anyway, and the gillnet came up 200 tons short. I assume that is a typo and the 7071.509 number is the gillnet catch, sounds right. Hearing nothing but good things from the survey divers. Spawns all over the place in the non typical northern areas Cortez, Quadra, Oyster river etc. (a lot of this is un-assessed fish which wouldn't have been counted in the 75000 so the true number is much higher) and all the area from EC Denman, Qualicum etc looking really good with miles and miles of heavy spawn with about 75nm of total spawn. Very good and positive year no matter which way you slice it. sure haven't heard much from the NGO's about this since the fishery kicked off, I guess if its not doom and gloom they aint interested.

 

[fogged in]

for the gulf fishery the seine quota was caught, within 25 tons anyway, and the gillnet came up 200 tons short. I assume that is a typo and the 7071.509 number is the gillnet catch, sounds right. Hearing nothing but good things from the survey divers. Spawns all over the place in the non typical northern areas Cortez, Quadra, Oyster river etc. (a lot of this is un-assessed fish which wouldn't have been counted in the 75000 so the true number is much higher) and all the area from EC Denman, Qualicum etc looking really good with miles and miles of heavy spawn with about 75nm of total spawn. Very good and positive year no matter which way you slice it. sure haven't heard much from the NGO's about this since the fishery kicked off, I guess if its not doom and gloom they aint interested.

Thanks for the update.
It is good news. We have even seen good signs of herring down our way in Victoria. Not sure if there are any up the Gorge?

 

[searun]

The doom and gloomers are too busy manufacturing more fake news...that's why we haven't heard from them.

 

[wildmanyeah]

They got their wish a total shut down of the economy what more could they ever want.

 

[fullmoon]

There was a large spawn in Sechelt inlet yesterday that wasn’t counted in the biomass.

 

[fish4all]

I spoke with the dive platform on Friday. 70+ miles of spawn so far and still spawns to come. The coverage was excellent and the herring stocks look very healthy. Still looking forward to the published numbers for spawn and biomass estimates. Just guessing but I believe we will be well over 100,000 tons.
nice to hear nothing from Pacific Wild, the hornby group and the quallicum herring Aid protestors.

 

[littlechucky]

Those groups should be trumpeting how awesome the spawn was.

But I guess that wouldn’t garner any financial support.

I applaud the Squamish Streamkeepers, who are actually doing something about creating habitat for herring.

 

[searun]

Agree - more should be done to help with spawning habitat to help increase abundance. Hats off to those groups that are working hard to help address creating abundance. The problem with these anti-fishing groups is all they want to do is create a fuss, point fingers at the easy target (fishing), and they won't lift a finger to make a difference.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Agree - more should be done to help with spawning habitat to help increase abundance. Hats off to those groups that are working hard to help address creating abundance. The problem with these anti-fishing groups is all they want to do is create a fuss, point fingers at the easy target (fishing), and they won't lift a finger to make a difference.

Totally.

 

[fogged in]

Final 2020 DFO Herring bio mass estimate is in at 75000 tons.
"Two industry funded test vessels participated in the test program: Viking
Cavalier February 27 to March 5 and Nita Maria March 8 to 12. The peak sounding
estimate for the Strait of Georgia was approximately 75,000 tons and a total of
26 biological samples were collected."
From a previous post, not mine..
"In 2019, the estimate of biomass was a range of 67K to 221K metric tons. and the final estimate was 86K .
That's about a 12% decline from year to year.
This clearly fly's in the face of the rosy picture painted by those who support the Herring Roe fishery, clearly we are going in the wrong direction!
Clearly the "science" we are relying on is not resulting in stability in the Herring stocks.

 

[gone fishin]

Actually if you look at the 2016 herring bio mass the final estimate that year were around 130,000 tons.
That's a decline of close to 60% in only 4 years!
I think they should peg a minimum bio mass level of 200,000 tons and not allow any harvesting until we can sustain that level.