How many hali did you actually take in 2013?

[SophiaB]

Wow! What a nice pretty story . Your right why don't we make it all catch and release. I have no trouble paying thousands and thousands of dollars for my boat and equipment . Add to that the thousands in maintenance ,insurance, gas ,bait , new tackle , moor-age, accommodation and so on and so on. So I can go by fish at the store while I kill a bunch and let them go so some feel good give up what little we still have thinker can say . "It is about the sport"

Bull ****. Fish are food. Sure I can buy it instead of catch it but I prefer to gather food while doing something I love. Don't start the bandwagon that the food should be considered a bonus to the experience. We all might as well sell all our **** and just book a charter once a year to take us on an echo tour or maybe so we can have the experience of catching and likely killing a fish before we throw it back. Holly f...


By the way , Good for you for only taking what you need.

I am not saying we need to go limit out every time or take more than we need. I am just saying don't start preaching the "it dose not matter if we catch anything or not". We do it for the experience crap. It dose matter if DFO keeps taking away our right to have a reasonable expectation of harvesting a reasonable amount of FOOD so some Commie can catch it, kill it and sell it

I do it for the fun of it! And to me its a lot more fun when I am killing things!

 

[Bragg]

Didn't make it out for hali last year so none for us.

I am an out of province fisherman as well

Bragg,, with all do respect and please don't take me wrong on this, I pass judgment on no one, but the days are gone when we can look at sport fishing as a meat hunt. Yes it is nice to take home some spoils from our adventures but we have to start to focus on the experience more than the spoils. Don't get me wrong I love some for the freezer as well,, both Salmon and Hali but we no longer should be looking to go there and fill the freezer. As a youngster back in the late 70's and early 80's I traveled out to the coast with my parents every summer. We had one focus,, fill the jars and fill the freezer. My father rest his soul was old school and believe me we filled every jar we were legal to do. We fished the good spots the out of the way holes. Dad and I fished and cleaned and mom canned all day, it was a job.. The first few years I started going west on my own I did the same,, fished hard and took as many as I could, my 3 boys were coming with me then and we filled our quota's. About 7 or 8 years ago I stopped being so focused on the meat and more on the experience,, oh I still take a few home but I have not taken my quota home in a long time, I take only what I feel is enough for a treat a couple times a month for most of the year. Believe me it hasn't been for lack of fish,, I seem to do alright on that. I believe the 2 Hali possession limit is fine, add your total of 8 Salmon, 4 Chinook,,( go for the bigger ones for smoking and canning) and your 4 Coho,, this one can be tough if your only aloud Hatchery. But put all this together and there is plenty of meat..

Again each to his own,, but its a sport fishery we have to start to treat it as such and enjoy it,, not make it work and focus on just filling the freezer.

Just my view,, not that's its worth much..

Walleyes...no offence taken, and I do appreciate your view. In fact, I agree with it.

I am not a meat fisherman by definition. As a matter of fact, the only time I keep fish are on 2 occasions: when I am remote camping (walleye for food), and when I head to the coast. Every other time I fish I do so for the experience...and that is not an exaggeration.

However, I feel you skipped over my main point.

If I was to solely take a trip for the "experience", I could go to a number of locations, all over our great country. Our trips to the coast have the added benefit of halibut and salmon for the freezer. Without that benefit, chances are good that I will forego spending $2000-3000 on a trip to the coast and instead opt for a $500 trip to Lake of the Woods (for arguements sake). The "experience" of being on the water, of spending time with friends/family can be argued to be the same. However the difference is how many of my dollars are going to the coastal economy.

So...do we protect our fishery? Absolutely. Do we open it up to allow meat fishermen (me included) to fill their boots, willy nilly? Absolutely not. BUT...we need a balance to keep fishermen coming back, a balance to allow those that want to, to keep food for their table. The resource belongs to tree huggers and protein consumers alike, and we can't forget that.

This is a bit of a derail of the original post, and for that I apologize. I just wish I could keep some bigger fish to restock my freezer...as we love eating halibut.

...and BTW, we eat every pound we catch...with zero waste. It's like gold around here!

 

[walleyes]

Totally agree Bragg some very good points.. We also treat every morsel as gold lol,, its good stuff..

Not exactly sure where I stated any of the things jencourt has ranted on about but,, what ever..

 

[Karma-Kazi]

I too started out fishing for meat with my Grandfather and Father. I have since taught them how to catch and release without much trouble. They both agree the times for meat fishing are gone. But dont you think the origional regs in place 7-8 years ago were fine. Its them danm commies that get all the Quota. That is the issue in my eyes.

-KK

 

[Xena]

We got three. 2 were 30lbs, which we kept for us, and one, 150,which were pain-stakingly released, with only the hook. Got the spreader bar and 2lb weight back. It was amazing to watch her gently sink back down to the depths where she belongs...... Xena

 

[Sculpin]

We got three. 2 were 30lbs, which we kept for us, and one, 150,which were pain-stakingly released, with only the hook. Got the spreader bar and 2lb weight back. It was amazing to watch her gently sink back down to the depths where she belongs...... Xena

Nice post. Thank you.


We didn't catch any halibut for 2013. We fully plan on taking advantage of an early opening this year before the license expires .

 

[Bragg]

We got three. 2 were 30lbs, which we kept for us, and one, 150,which were pain-stakingly released, with only the hook. Got the spreader bar and 2lb weight back. It was amazing to watch her gently sink back down to the depths where she belongs...... Xena

Three years ago, that was exactly the size we were after. Big, but not too big to handle/land/butcher. Fish pushing 200 were just too big. If we were lucky enough to pull one bigger, she went back. And yes, we did catch that size...100s, 150s and even 250s. Usually 2, sometimes 3 per trip, enough to jam the freezer. We were fishing remote, with lots of opportunity to pull big fish.

... And we paid our dollars to have that privilege.

These days those fish are still being caught...don't kid yourself...they are just being caught by the comm boats. Don't think for a second that we are saving the resource now. You may put them back, but someone else is pulling them up again.

 

[seadna]

As long as the thread is highjacked a bit - I have to admit I have mixed feelings about referring to what I do as a "meat" fishery vs pleasure or sport fishing. To me the two are inextricably intermixed. It's not so much the relative value of the "meat" I take home in terms of the $'s it is worth as it is the entire experience of catching, caring for, processing and eating the fish I catch that makes the entire deal a special experience. There's little doubt that for most trips I make the cost of the entire adventure divided by the lbs of fish is far more than the retail price of the fish. However, I generally can't buy fish that are cared for as well as the ones I catch. I also can't buy fish as fresh as the ones I fillet in the afternoon at eat at dinner on the boat. The absolutely perfectly cared for salmon, halibut or albacore eaten fresh off the grill or from under the broiler on the boat (I have a small toaster oven on the boat) are the best meals I've ever had bar none. To me those experiences are priceless. Also, when it comes to frozen fish, the salmon and tuna that I have go from swimming to vacuum packed to in the freezer in less than 12 hours and they ALWAYS taste better than what I buy at the store. When I'm eating a piece of fish that I caught this summer and it comes from a package marked Chinook - Aug 8th or Tuna Sept 15, the memories of that day are re-lived in each bite. So when so discuss keep and catch as "meat fishing", it feels like it's doing a disservice to the entire experience I'm having. Just my two cents worth.

 

[Purple Hazer]

Agree on your last post seadna, kinda funny though every time we revisit the experience the fish seem to get a little bigger!

 

[HookNSlice]

Took a work time out to catch up with this post. We had 3 licenses for our boat and 7 halibut mostly 15-20lbs and one bigger. Just reading the above posts especially from the out of province folks it makes me wonder if we should rename Save on Foods to "King of the Ocean". They control the quota, set the market price, own the boats, never run out of stock and tax everyone.... kind of like the monarch in England.

 

[trophywife]

yes jimmy controls it all. price fixing at its finest. in season, drop the price, get commies to work far below standard price. out of season, choke off the market and jack the price. i posted a pic of halibut at t&t last week for 20 buks a pound. OUCH!!

 

[bigbruce]

yes jimmy controls it all. price fixing at its finest. in season, drop the price, get commies to work far below standard price. out of season, choke off the market and jack the price. i posted a pic of halibut at t&t last week for 20 buks a pound. OUCH!!

Not sure I'd call it "price fixing", TW. Sounds more like "supply and demand" to me. Same kind of thing with gas prices. There's a limit to refinery capacity and during the summer when the demand is high so is the price as the refineries can't keep up with the demand. At this time of the year, demand is low and so is the price. With Halibut - in season, there's lots of supply so prices are down. Out of season, not much supply so price is up.
Sounds to me like you have a case of "jimmy envy".

 

[trophywife]

Big bruce.. Sorry your so wrong.. About everything you just posted.. Except about fuel.