OFFICIAL 2016 Vancouver-Howe Sound-Sechelt Reports Thread

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Days of fishing the Cap are now officially numbered and anywhere else close into the harbour for that matter. Kinder Morgan Pipeline expansion tentatively approved by Justin Harper.

Good riddance I say the cap is nothing but an issue for everyone including most of the members here who come on the forum to complain about it every year. Yes from May 15 on you can slay coho and chinook there all the way to september but it's turned into some of the bars on the Fraser River that they have had to shut down (people complaining about sports fishermen & natives). The cap is a put and take fishery and they could just as easy shut down the hatchery, Tho i think the optics of doing that at the same time they approve a pipeline might be bad.
 
Good riddance I say the cap is nothing but an issue for everyone including most of the members here who come on the forum to complain about it every year. Yes from May 15 on you can slay coho and chinook there all the way to september but it's turned into some of the bars on the Fraser River that they have had to shut down (people complaining about sports fishermen & natives). The cap is a put and take fishery and they could just as easy shut down the hatchery, Tho i think the optics of doing that at the same time they approve a pipeline might be bad.
Well the Columbia is also a put and take fishery so if they shut that down too the Orcas need all the Fraser fish we can just turn out the lights and go home then with that train of thought.
 
Well the Columbia is also a put and take fishery so if they shut that down too the Orcas need all the Fraser fish we can just turn out the lights and go home then with that train of thought.

Bingo the government would like nothing more. u can't even get more then 50 signatures these days to remove a damn or build a Salmon fish fence.
 
salmon ranching experiment at the indian river would create a great local fishery.. then the cap could close. and the local economies tied to sport and commercial would do well.

Twenty years ago they had a great fishery going up Indian Arm. It was a really nice protected water fishery. It could be blowing a gale on the strait, but was calm up there for fishing. They used to raise springs in net pens up the arm, but like everything else I guess the funding went away. It was a great fishery while the funding lasted.
 
Twenty years ago they had a great fishery going up Indian Arm. It was a really nice protected water fishery. It could be blowing a gale on the strait, but was calm up there for fishing. They used to raise springs in net pens up the arm, but like everything else I guess the funding went away. It was a great fishery while the funding lasted.

How did it work? DFO fed the penned salmon fish farm pellets until they're big enough to be released and then theoretically caught by sportsfishers?
 
I'm not a 100% sure as it may have been closer to 25 years ago when the program was in full swing. I believe the juvenile smolts were raised in net pens in one of the bays in Indian Arm. When the smolts became large enough to be released I think they moved them to where the discharge tubes from the buntzen powerhouse enter the ocean. I think they kept them in the vicinity of the powerhouse water tunnels long enough to imprint on that location as there home river. Once imprinted they were released to roam the ocean like any other salmon. In four years the adult springs returned to the Buntzen powerhouse discharge tubes as that was there home river to them. Anglers got to fish for them from July right till the fall because the springs had no real river to ascend. Kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. They couldn't spawn in the discharge tubes so they were available to fish all summer long. I believe they used the Quinsam strain of red springs that returned early and reached large sizes. It was a very nice fishery while it lasted.
 
You'd think tackle manufacturers and retailers would be more public in their support of conservation or promotion of ideas like this one. I doubt it'd be very expensive to d0. Just tow one of those fallowed fish farms up the inlet and stock it with smolts. Hire a guy from deep cove to kayak over and feed 'em twice a day.

Re: smolt survival: what we knew all along - seals are eating them. duh!
https://www.psf.ca/blog/seals-taking-bite-out-salmon-survival
 
You'd think tackle manufacturers and retailers would be more public in their support of conservation or promotion of ideas like this one. I doubt it'd be very expensive to d0. Just tow one of those fallowed fish farms up the inlet and stock it with smolts. Hire a guy from deep cove to kayak over and feed 'em twice a day.

Re: smolt survival: what we knew all along - seals are eating them. duh!
https://www.psf.ca/blog/seals-taking-bite-out-salmon-survival
I wonder if they considered the disapearence of the larger herring in the herring cycle. Used to be a lot in the 16" range but are now trending a lot smaller and a lot less due to over harvesting the large adult females for roe and dogfood.
 
I wonder if they considered the disapearence of the larger herring in the herring cycle. Used to be a lot in the 16" range but are now trending a lot smaller and a lot less due to over harvesting the large adult females for roe and dogfood.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if the seals used to rely on herring more and have switched to smolts. Either way, time for a seal cull! that'll never happen. Probably a "seal sterilization program" lol
 
The feds developed subcutaneous birth control for seals that could be injected with dart rifles years ago. Costs lots of money for that kind of program though, and I guess we're too low on the totem pole to rate that kind of money from the feds.
 
I always wondered why the transient orca population didn't increase along with the increase in seals, keeping them more or less in check.
 
I'm not a 100% sure as it may have been closer to 25 years ago when the program was in full swing. I believe the juvenile smolts were raised in net pens in one of the bays in Indian Arm. When the smolts became large enough to be released I think they moved them to where the discharge tubes from the buntzen powerhouse enter the ocean. I think they kept them in the vicinity of the powerhouse water tunnels long enough to imprint on that location as there home river. Once imprinted they were released to roam the ocean like any other salmon. In four years the adult springs returned to the Buntzen powerhouse discharge tubes as that was there home river to them. Anglers got to fish for them from July right till the fall because the springs had no real river to ascend. Kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. They couldn't spawn in the discharge tubes so they were available to fish all summer long. I believe they used the Quinsam strain of red springs that returned early and reached large sizes. It was a very nice fishery while it lasted.

It created a snag fishery for alot of people. I remember seeing people standing on the rock waiting for the fish to make there rounds and they would snag them as they went by. Pretty sad to see! Orange mooching weights and a couple treble hooks was the secret lure
 
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It created a snag fishery for alot of people. I remember seeing people standing on the rock waiting for the fish to make there rounds and they would snag them as they went by. Pretty sad to see! Orange mooching weights and a could treble hooks was the secret lure

Snaggers should have the book thrown at them. That's is no excuse to eliminate a fishery. These days with cameras on every phone those guys would be busted very quickly. Fishing from the shore could be made out of bounds, or a single hook restriction like at the mouth of the cap could be implemented. Really no one has business being on the property at the powerhouse anyway. It could be easily gated at the dock to prevent Snaggers accessing shore.
 
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