So what happened at the round table regarding Alberni Inlet sockeye for the rec sector?

Islandgirl

Well-Known Member
For the past week I have watched the seine boats in the inlet from Sunday 10am to Tuesday evening, 3 full days off it. The gillnets have been getting a couple days a week of openings. The FN boats have been out continually around 10 mile pt. It's no wonder the rec Sector can't catch a fish. By the time the schools are back in between the blue roof and town the seines are unleashed again. So WTH happened at the round table??????????
 
Last edited:
I have no knowledge of how things unfolded at the table and this is pure speculation but with The extremely fast migration

400k already upstream counted with 650k run size and i'm assuming there is like 200k tac. That would mean that its now really a mop up fishery.

The only thing to say is they could of started the commercial fishery earlier but i think there was some debate if the fish were in fact early and they were expecting a smaller run so I believe they held up fishing for them.

Below is some posts from FB from the commercial gillnetters

With seine fleet having problems catching because they are not schooling up, I'm not actually sure delaying or postponing the commercial fishery would of helped out the rec fishery.

You can also look at the DFO updates as well

 
Last edited:

June 16​


Barkley Sound Roundtable met today.
Everything is going along as expected for this season so far. The escapement is slightly higher and/or earlier than would be expected - but at this stage of the run its impossible to tell if it's just early, they do seem to be blasting up the canal and into the river with the abundance of fresh water calling them in.
FN fisheries going well
Sport fishery going well, low participation but it will gradually increase as the weather improves.
Test boat says he thinks there was 50,000 inside and 30,000 outside on the days he was testing.
Escapement seems to be averaging around 4-5,000 a day, so it will have to start climbing dramatically if it's going to be a bigger than forecasted return.
Area D will open in the typical outside areas on Tuesday for 14 hours, 6am to 8pm.
Reminder to all to call your logbook in ASAP after the opening. If people forget to call in, or maybe they never set a net, then we get "charged" for that fish against our allocation for the next week and onwards until it actually gets reconciled against the correct logbook data. So it's really important to call in a zero catch if you filed a pretrip and didn't end up setting for any reason, or if you made a set and then broke down, etc. Always best to call in the days fishery ASAP, thanks.
-Ryan


June 23

The Barkley Sound Roundtable met this afternoon.
**Before I give the update, I need to remind everyone that they MUST call in their logbook catches or file their Elog report the day of the fishery. It's not good enough to wait until the morning, it makes it hard for us to ask the DFO to act quickly when they can turn around and point at the logbook numbers and say that they can't act because they don't know how much fish was caught. In our first fishery this year we had 118 boats fishing, but only had 80 call in their catch by Wednesday noon, and we are STILL waiting on 20 boats to call in and it is already Thursday afternoon. Please call in the catch report once you are in cell range as soon as possible after it closes. Thanks.**
Estimated catch for Area D from last week is 16,968 from 118 boats fishing.
Escapement as of Tuesday morning was 151,075 and escapement has continued strong yesterday and today as well.
The test boat estimates 80,000 fish in the canal outside of Ten Mile, and 25,000 inside of Ten Mile.
The approximate catch to date from all sectors is 60,000. The rec catch remains very low because the fish are just moving into the river too fast.
The run size has been upgraded from 400,000 to 550,000 adults. This is based on the amount of fish that have been seen in the entire system to date, but the expectation is tempered somewhat by the concern that the fish are most likely migrating early because of the ideal river conditions, and we may see a sharp cutoff in migration after the peak goes through.
Area D will open on Tuesday, June 28 for our regular 14 hour opening, 6am to 8pm in the traditional outside area. There is 13,000 TAC remaining for Area D at the new run size. If fishing is slow, then we probably wont catch it, and if fishing is good, then that means there is enough fish coming that the run is probably even larger than the upgrade. The table is (mostly)comfortable with this plan.
The Roundtable is going to have an extra meeting on Wednesday at 11am, to review what has happened over the weekend, what the test boat saw, how the seine fishery went, and what Area D caught (be sure to call in your logbook Tuesday night) The purpose of this extra meeting is to predict if the run size will be upgraded again on the official meeting Thursday afternoon. The reason we want to try and predict the upgrade early is because Area D cannot fish the outside area past June 30th in our efforts to protect Henderson Lake sockeye.
If the extra meeting on Wednesday predicts that there is (a)going to be another run upgrade and (b) there will be Area D TAC left over at the new run size, then we are going to try and plan another Area D opening SHORT NOTICE on THURSDAY, June 30th before the Henderson Closure comes into effect. This third opening is not a sure thing, I would say the chances of it happening are about 50:50, but you will be able to better predict it by the testing and the escapement as we go along. As we get closer, if things start to look worse, we may cancel the extra Wednesday meeting all together.
Any questions, comment below.


July 3

Area D Fishermen, there has been no meeting since Thursday, but the fish continue to pour through the counters. Escapement is over 370,000 now.
The purpose of this post is just to make sure everyone is aware that the advisors are trying hard to get an Area D opening as soon as possible - I do not know if we will succeed, and I do not know if/when it will be or how long, but we need everyone to be aware.
If we get something I will post it here right away, but nobody should be surprised if there is a short-notice opening sometime soon.
-Ryan

July 5

Barkley Roundtable met today at 2pm for an extra meeting.
Escapement is proceeding strong. Scale data is showing that a large percentage of the escapement is jacks, so they have adjusted the total adult escapement downward to 380,000 - which is still very strong, and a positive sign for 4 years from now.
Recreational fishing remains very slow, most have given up on sockeye and are thinking about Chinook.
FN fisheries have been good, but seem to have dropped off since Sunday. The FN fishermen still have lots of allocation to catch, and it seems doubtful they will catch it without another big push of fish into the river. They have been extended until Thursday.
Seine fishing has been mediocre. They have over 40,000 TAC to go, it seems unlikely that they will achieve it unless the fish start slowing down and schooling up somewhat. Seines have been extended until Thursday. They are currently fishing out to Pocahontas, but will move their outer boundary back to Bilton Pt starting at noon on Wednesday.
Area D has only 5,000 TAC to catch at the current run-size, and there will not be a run-size adjustment until the regular meeting on Thursday. However the table has agreed that Area D can fish into our share of the uncaught Recreational catch in the meantime - while we wait to see what the biologists do with the official run size. With our share of the Recreational catch, we have appox 18,000 pieces to go.
Area D will open Wednesday afternoon at 4pm, from Polly Pt to Pocahontas Pt, for 24 hours. There will be a regular roundtable meeting Thursday at 1pm, during our fishery. So there is a possibility of extension, depending on how the catches go, and depending on how the meeting goes.
Please call-in or elog your catch from before midnight ASAP after midnight so we have some data to work with at the meeting, thanks.
The Recreational fleet has asked if we could please leave some room between the scotchmen for passage. Sometime the nets get shingled in behind each other and it makes it very hard to get through.
-Ryan
 
Last edited:
For the past couple weeks I have watched the seine boats in the inlet from Sunday 10am to Tuesday evening, 3 full days off it. The gillnets have been getting a couple days a week of openings. The FN boats have been out continually around 10 mile pt. It's no wonder the rec Sector can't catch a fish. By the time the schools are back in between the blue roof and town the seines are unleashed again. So WTH happened at the round table??????????
Looks like Sporty is just an after thought.
 

June 16​


Barkley Sound Roundtable met today.
Everything is going along as expected for this season so far. The escapement is slightly higher and/or earlier than would be expected - but at this stage of the run its impossible to tell if it's just early, they do seem to be blasting up the canal and into the river with the abundance of fresh water calling them in.
FN fisheries going well
Sport fishery going well, low participation but it will gradually increase as the weather improves.
Test boat says he thinks there was 50,000 inside and 30,000 outside on the days he was testing.
Escapement seems to be averaging around 4-5,000 a day, so it will have to start climbing dramatically if it's going to be a bigger than forecasted return.
Area D will open in the typical outside areas on Tuesday for 14 hours, 6am to 8pm.
Reminder to all to call your logbook in ASAP after the opening. If people forget to call in, or maybe they never set a net, then we get "charged" for that fish against our allocation for the next week and onwards until it actually gets reconciled against the correct logbook data. So it's really important to call in a zero catch if you filed a pretrip and didn't end up setting for any reason, or if you made a set and then broke down, etc. Always best to call in the days fishery ASAP, thanks.
-Ryan


June 23

The Barkley Sound Roundtable met this afternoon.
**Before I give the update, I need to remind everyone that they MUST call in their logbook catches or file their Elog report the day of the fishery. It's not good enough to wait until the morning, it makes it hard for us to ask the DFO to act quickly when they can turn around and point at the logbook numbers and say that they can't act because they don't know how much fish was caught. In our first fishery this year we had 118 boats fishing, but only had 80 call in their catch by Wednesday noon, and we are STILL waiting on 20 boats to call in and it is already Thursday afternoon. Please call in the catch report once you are in cell range as soon as possible after it closes. Thanks.**
Estimated catch for Area D from last week is 16,968 from 118 boats fishing.
Escapement as of Tuesday morning was 151,075 and escapement has continued strong yesterday and today as well.
The test boat estimates 80,000 fish in the canal outside of Ten Mile, and 25,000 inside of Ten Mile.
The approximate catch to date from all sectors is 60,000. The rec catch remains very low because the fish are just moving into the river too fast.
The run size has been upgraded from 400,000 to 550,000 adults. This is based on the amount of fish that have been seen in the entire system to date, but the expectation is tempered somewhat by the concern that the fish are most likely migrating early because of the ideal river conditions, and we may see a sharp cutoff in migration after the peak goes through.
Area D will open on Tuesday, June 28 for our regular 14 hour opening, 6am to 8pm in the traditional outside area. There is 13,000 TAC remaining for Area D at the new run size. If fishing is slow, then we probably wont catch it, and if fishing is good, then that means there is enough fish coming that the run is probably even larger than the upgrade. The table is (mostly)comfortable with this plan.
The Roundtable is going to have an extra meeting on Wednesday at 11am, to review what has happened over the weekend, what the test boat saw, how the seine fishery went, and what Area D caught (be sure to call in your logbook Tuesday night) The purpose of this extra meeting is to predict if the run size will be upgraded again on the official meeting Thursday afternoon. The reason we want to try and predict the upgrade early is because Area D cannot fish the outside area past June 30th in our efforts to protect Henderson Lake sockeye.
If the extra meeting on Wednesday predicts that there is (a)going to be another run upgrade and (b) there will be Area D TAC left over at the new run size, then we are going to try and plan another Area D opening SHORT NOTICE on THURSDAY, June 30th before the Henderson Closure comes into effect. This third opening is not a sure thing, I would say the chances of it happening are about 50:50, but you will be able to better predict it by the testing and the escapement as we go along. As we get closer, if things start to look worse, we may cancel the extra Wednesday meeting all together.
Any questions, comment below.


July 3

Area D Fishermen, there has been no meeting since Thursday, but the fish continue to pour through the counters. Escapement is over 370,000 now.
The purpose of this post is just to make sure everyone is aware that the advisors are trying hard to get an Area D opening as soon as possible - I do not know if we will succeed, and I do not know if/when it will be or how long, but we need everyone to be aware.
If we get something I will post it here right away, but nobody should be surprised if there is a short-notice opening sometime soon.
-Ryan

July 5

Barkley Roundtable met today at 2pm for an extra meeting.
Escapement is proceeding strong. Scale data is showing that a large percentage of the escapement is jacks, so they have adjusted the total adult escapement downward to 380,000 - which is still very strong, and a positive sign for 4 years from now.
Recreational fishing remains very slow, most have given up on sockeye and are thinking about Chinook.
FN fisheries have been good, but seem to have dropped off since Sunday. The FN fishermen still have lots of allocation to catch, and it seems doubtful they will catch it without another big push of fish into the river. They have been extended until Thursday.
Seine fishing has been mediocre. They have over 40,000 TAC to go, it seems unlikely that they will achieve it unless the fish start slowing down and schooling up somewhat. Seines have been extended until Thursday. They are currently fishing out to Pocahontas, but will move their outer boundary back to Bilton Pt starting at noon on Wednesday.
Area D has only 5,000 TAC to catch at the current run-size, and there will not be a run-size adjustment until the regular meeting on Thursday. However the table has agreed that Area D can fish into our share of the uncaught Recreational catch in the meantime - while we wait to see what the biologists do with the official run size. With our share of the Recreational catch, we have appox 18,000 pieces to go.
Area D will open Wednesday afternoon at 4pm, from Polly Pt to Pocahontas Pt, for 24 hours. There will be a regular roundtable meeting Thursday at 1pm, during our fishery. So there is a possibility of extension, depending on how the catches go, and depending on how the meeting goes.
Please call-in or elog your catch from before midnight ASAP after midnight so we have some data to work with at the meeting, thanks.
The Recreational fleet has asked if we could please leave some room between the scotchmen for passage. Sometime the nets get shingled in behind each other and it makes it very hard to get through.
-Ryan

Sounds like the fish are bypassing and heading river. Rec had an early opportunity so it makes sense commercial would open up based on numbers.
 
Here is what happened with the Seine openings, no wonder a rec guy can't get a fish.

Seine Opening In the inlet JUNE 26, 27, 28
JULY 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Seine Free days were June 29, 30, July 01, 02

So just when the fish were starting to return to the inlet the seines cleaned it out again...WTF
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand the inlet was cleaned out every 3 days... Left nothing for the REC sector.
 
Common sense would dictate launching the commercial efforts AFTER the Canada Day long weekend, not immediately prior to that.

Fair point but the group obviously met beforehand, and decided that. Grand scheme of things I don't think it would have really made a difference honestly. Those fish are moving and hammering into river. Rec fishing was better earlier, and dropped off.

My only point is it is not just rec sector and no one else. The other sectors(FN and commercial) have to get a fair chance at them. As I said on here the round table is far from perfect, but at least you guys have openings for rec retention while rest of island/mainland areas suffer.

Wish we had these round tables everywhere.
 
Last edited:
Fair point but the group obviously met beforehand, and decided that. Grand scheme of things I don't think it would have really made a difference honestly. Those fish are moving and hammering into river. Rec fishing was better earlier, and dropped off.

My only point is it is not just rec sector and no one else. The other sectors(FN and commercial) have to get a fair chance at them. As I said on here the round table is far from perfect, but at least you guys have openings for rec retention while rest of island/mainland areas suffer.

Wish we had these round tables everywhere.
Fair point but the group obviously met beforehand, and decided that. Grand scheme of things I don't think it would have really made a difference honestly. Those fish are moving and hammering into river. Rec fishing was better earlier, and dropped off.

My only point is it is not just rec sector and no one else. The other sectors(FN and commercial) have to get a fair chance at them. As I said on here the round table is far from perfect, but at least you guys have openings for rec retention while rest of island/mainland areas suffer.

Wish we had these round tables everywhere.
shouldn’t both river systems be open for retention Sockeye. Not just two choke points? Doubt their worried about steelhead interception.
 
Fair point but the group obviously met beforehand, and decided that. Grand scheme of things I don't think it would have really made a difference honestly. Those fish are moving and hammering into river. Rec fishing was better earlier, and dropped off.
Rec fishing was definitely better before the nets were unleashed on the fish. It did drop off after the bag fleet, followed by gill nets. I spoke with a couple of gillnet guys and it's slow for them.
 
Last edited:
So here is why the rec guy can't catch a fish...
 

Attachments

  • PXL_20220709_141236862.PORTRAIT.jpg
    PXL_20220709_141236862.PORTRAIT.jpg
    206.4 KB · Views: 57
  • PXL_20220708_132747301.MP.jpg
    PXL_20220708_132747301.MP.jpg
    383.5 KB · Views: 55
  • PXL_20220709_140941488.NIGHT.jpg
    PXL_20220709_140941488.NIGHT.jpg
    374.4 KB · Views: 48
  • PXL_20220708_132754913.PORTRAIT.jpg
    PXL_20220708_132754913.PORTRAIT.jpg
    444.1 KB · Views: 48
  • PXL_20220708_132759689.PORTRAIT.jpg
    PXL_20220708_132759689.PORTRAIT.jpg
    463.3 KB · Views: 53
U need to get over it .... the sport sector is only allowed a total of 5 percent of the total catch .. period... as stated before a very large bunchb wam by everyone and I believe at the point there is more then enough fish required for spawning... cold water year.... cool weather year.. lots of water in the river equals... we won't catch them regards of how much you try.... period
 
So here is why the rec guy can't catch a fish...


Honestly your 100 percent wrong. Those fish are not biting. Water is high and cold. Those fish are moving quick. Let the boys make some money. It's great for everyone. They have well over their escapement. They upped the run as of last week to 800 thousand. Great job to the round table for managing the fishery
 
Honestly your 100 percent wrong. Those fish are not biting. Water is high and cold. Those fish are moving quick. Let the boys make some money. It's great for everyone. They have well over their escapement. They upped the run as of last week to 800 thousand. Great job to the round table for managing the fishery
Everyone I know were getting limits PRIOR to the seines going in the end of June, that's a fact. The locals that have fished that area(10 mile) for the last 15 to 25 years as they have places right there...so do I. I know what's going on. It became a Mop up fishery at the end of June. to hell with the local economy and same to the rec fisher.
 
Common sense would dictate launching the commercial efforts AFTER the Canada Day long weekend, not immediately prior to that.
I like how they used to the exact same thing just before the derby on Labour Day, and probably still do!! What a way to demoralize the rec fishing community. All a fisherman needs is hope. Hard to have hope when you’re being encircled by a seiner leaning on the horn. Why not play nice and give everyone a fair chance.
 
Siene fishing for sockeye is now open until July 28. they will also be netting Chinook, coho and steelhead as incidental catch, Whether tossed back or no the mortality is huge. I spoke with a friend today that has a fishery biology degree. She said wiping out the entire back half of the run is a disaster in the making. Of course Department of Fools (DFO) say they have enough sockeye in the lakes. WTF nature managed this fishery very well long before we started messing with it. Totally disgusted.
 
Back
Top