I had trouble reading this drivel......
- Thread starter Cuba Libre
- Start date
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
How about this one
https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/opinion/letter-to-the-editor-chinook-closure-a-disaster-for-fishing/
Yuk
Like can you believe this guy there is no fishing for salmon in Nanaimo and haven’t been for years because the herring fishery wiped out their food and orcas are starving. Hard to believe this guy is a fishermen.
https://www.nanaimobulletin.com/opinion/letter-to-the-editor-chinook-closure-a-disaster-for-fishing/
Yuk
Like can you believe this guy there is no fishing for salmon in Nanaimo and haven’t been for years because the herring fishery wiped out their food and orcas are starving. Hard to believe this guy is a fishermen.
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So how many chinooks get caught off the pier between now and August 1? Zero to 5 would be a good guess. Catch and release is nothing new and sure is better than no fishing.
RiverBoy
Well-Known Member
. lots of chinooks get caught off the pier every year. they have a bragging board where date and weight is recorded and it’s full by the end of summer.
Nope! Not before August. Not chinooks. Next time you walk out there in July for ice cream, pay attention to the "bragging board". For the amount of shore anglers, you'll only see a few springs and pinks. Let's not pick on the poor shore anglers. Man that's pathetic.
Extremely painful! You play that salmon out to the point it is exhausted and flat on the water, then guide it into a long rope drop net, haul it up a long ways hand over hand and lift it over the rail and then drop it on the hot dry wood deck followed by the de-hooking process and if they are tourists, a few pictures, followed by dry hands and a hugging wrestling match to lift and push it back over for the long drop and big impact splash with obviously no way to hold it by the tail in the water and let it recover its energy, before you release it.
My guess is the survival rate would be reduced from the norm for boat based catch and release, which is very high.
As a former ocean shore fishermen, ( I use a boat now) I can tell you that it is an extremely inefficient way to fish for big salmon, especially Chinook. It allows those without a boat and those tourists visiting the community to fish and to actually have the possibility, if very low, of catching and eating a salmon. Huge numbers of hours go into the effort for each Chinook harvested. I would argue that comparatively very few fish are caught and that the impact on salmon conservation is minimal and on that basis it should be allowed different rules and not subject to catch and release, even when ocean powerboat fishing is.
It would be interesting to know the actual numbers of Chinook and when taken off the Campbell River Tourist Fishing Pier during the summer season. I suspect it is surprisingly low, while the benefit in terms of the number of hours of people fishing who otherwise could not, is high. One also wonders how many if any, of those few Chinook, would be Fraser fish.
There should be exceptions for ocean based shore fishing, as in my view doing so would make little difference to conservation, but then there appears to be very little room for common sense in Ottawa's politically motivated fishery decisions as of late.
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John Ingram
Well-Known Member
Its' the same as fishing from shore here in Victoria.... MAYBE a 1 in 4 chance/per trip of getting a spring during the summer month.
Very rare to catch a winter spring or pink from shore in the other month so I rarely fish outside of May- August.
I have taken only 50 springs in the last 40 years fishing from shore. AND just one these fish will feed my family and lots of friends.
I've been practicing conservation for YEARS. and have released any fish over 25lbs. Every tagged fish that I have caught I have
turned in the head.... ALL reports that I have recieved over the years have been Washington State fish
Everyone should be able try this style of fishing
Very rare to catch a winter spring or pink from shore in the other month so I rarely fish outside of May- August.
I have taken only 50 springs in the last 40 years fishing from shore. AND just one these fish will feed my family and lots of friends.
I've been practicing conservation for YEARS. and have released any fish over 25lbs. Every tagged fish that I have caught I have
turned in the head.... ALL reports that I have recieved over the years have been Washington State fish
Everyone should be able try this style of fishing
RiverBoy
Well-Known Member
Not picking on anyone. this whole closure is pathetic. we can agree on that !
My educated guess, the origin of the chinook caught off the pier are very close in origin; as in about 1/2km away. There was a private net pen in the area. It is no longer in use.
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littlechucky
Crew Member
Here is a shot of the board taken in mid August a couple years ago.
Some good sized fish taken. I would suspect most are Campbell River fish.
Some good sized fish taken. I would suspect most are Campbell River fish.
While his discussion of the decline of salmon is certainly incomplete, I think he has a valid point. The herring fishery is a contributing factor (as is a krill fishery). Fishing on the low end of the food chain doesn't make a lot of sense.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
Except he states that the you have to go to the WVCI to fish for salmon, Yet the herring population on WCVI is no where near as strong as the herring population in the SOG.
What about this statement, there no salmon in Nanaimo? how come guys are catching 10+ Chinook on one tide at thrasher rock right now? These type of statements harm our fishery more than they help it.
"What a disaster for salmon fishing. I live in Nanaimo and we used to have good fishing in the Strait of Georgia. Over the years it has diminished year after year and eventually, if we wanted to catch salmon, we had to go to the west coast of Vancouver Island. Now even the local orcas are not getting enough salmon to sustain their pods. This did not happen suddenly. It happened over several years. What has happened suddenly is fisheries has become aware."
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Cut the guy some slack. The truth is that the West Coast of VCI is better salmon fishing and has been for quite awhile(forever?). Also, while fish can be caught in the Strait of Georgia, it's not near as good as it used to be. Ditto for the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound. I fish mostly the out of Neah Bay (sometimes on the Canadian side) and Ilwaco. I do so because a bad day of fishing on the coast is typically as good as a good day of fishing inside. Sure I can have some good days inside, but the number are few and far between. There's a ton of things that have contributed to the decline of salmon - sea lion populations increasing, herring and krill fisheries removing important bits of the low end of the food chain, relentless commercial fishing farther north, (non-selective)gill net fishing in the rivers, decreased quality habitat in rivers and feeder streams, ocean acidification that is reducing krill and shrimp populations, warming temperatures that reduce salmon survivability in the rivers, increased disease burden from passing net pens in terminal areas, and huge plants of hatchery fish from WA, Alaska, Russia and Japan that all compete for Bering Sea food stock with wild fish and hatchery fish from locations that produce very few hatchery fish.
The writer is correct in saying that the overall decline of the fishery is part of a long term process in which governments (from all over including BC, WA and Alaska) have taken very little concrete action while observing the overall decline. A long time ago, we realized that we could no longer commercially harvest land mammals and have sustaining populations. With fish, we continue with commercial harvesting as if the supply is infinitely renewable. With salmon (and indeed most fish species), this is not a long term viable plan. Alaska (especially SE Alaska) harvests a ton of BC/WA/OR bound fish. Then another huge fraction is taken by the north central BC commercial fishery. Then another big chunk is taken west coast VCI commercials. About 70% of the fish bound for the Columbia River get caught before they pass the south tip of VCI. About 70% of West Coast VCI bound fish are caught in the Southern Alaska fishery. All of us (BC,WA, OR) are getting low-holed by commercial fishermen before the runs get to us.
http://wildfishconservancy.org/images/news/CaughtFarFromHome2011journalchart.jpg
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
guess you guys should be seing record returns this year
RiverBoy
Well-Known Member
PM sent
lazylump
Active Member
He's probably lived in the area a long time and is referring to how the fishing used to be. For instance there used to be some great fishing in the inside waters around Gabriola, now there is is virtually none and the bait isn't there anymore. You have to fish on the Georgia Straight side and the fishing in Winter isn't the same at all. As a kid I remember herring spawning regularly in bays that they are now almost absent from. I think most of our great Chinook fishing is the result of U.S. hatchery fish and I don't know how many years that's been the case?
I doubt record but I'd guess about 1.5-2x what was expected in the returns prior to Aug 1 when the commercials on WCVI open up.
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