If anyone believes the DFO data on the numbers of salmon netted on the lower Fraser as accurate and worth basing sound management decisions on then they are sadly misinformed. There is little, if any, auditing and enforcement of the number of salmon netted on the Fraser as there is little political will to do so. As we all know enforcement of most salmon harvesting regs. along the whole coast suffers from a lack staff and resources. However, this problem is greatly amplified by the lack of political will on the part of every political party to properly manage salmon net harvesting levels for sustainable conservation purposes.
IMHO the solution is not to keep fighting over the ever decreasing number of salmon - everyone loses in this scenario. Rather lets put more salmon in the water with a new hatchery on the Fraser (this should generate some interesting dialogue!).
While this takes place we need to do much more work to protect the Fraser River watershed regarding the problems caused by industrial pollution and agricultural run-off, negative logging and mining impacts, growing water withdrawals, increasing water temperatures and on-going loss of habitat.
Fighting over what resource group takes more fish than the others is a waste of time, meanwhile each year the chinook numbers continue to decline. Bottom line - If we want more salmon in the Fraser, then we need to stop fighting each other and start getting serious about working together to help the river produce more salmon. My 2 bits.