To Catch A Fish Or Not To Catch A Fish-That Is The Question

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 04:44 AM

Those fishermen who think that they have been handed a chance to catch a spring salmon in the area might want to read this year’s regulations.

A season was opened on the Bowron River some years ago which allowed local residents to take a salmon. A lot of fishermen tried their hand and to their credit a few spring salmon were caught. I don’t know the exact number, but if you factor in the cost of getting there, license for fresh water, gear and other camping gear, those fish came at a heavy price.

Later on the season was opened to allow people to fish below the CN train bridge in the city and now all the way up to the North Wood Bridge. I don’t know if anyone ever caught a salmon there, but a few tried.

It is a well known fact that if you look at the cost to catch a salmon in BC the sports fishermen pays the most to tap into the resource. They also get the least out.

Now along come the fed Fisheries to tell us that this year there are some more restrictions being put in place. It kinda like here are the restrictions, you won’t catch a fish you can keep, but you can get that warm fuzzy feeling just by being at the river’s edge. It’s that wilderness experience don’t you know and the fact that you spent all that money, glad to have you aboard.

On the Fraser system , Quesnel river July 27-Aug 18 you can catch and keep one Chinook per day under 77cm (30 Inches)

Chilko River jukly25-Aug 16^th, one fish a day under 77 cm.

Bowron River July 15^th –August 15^th I Chinook per day under 77cm (30 inches)

Fraser River below Northwood to power line in College Heights July10th-Aug 15^th Aug 15^th, none over 77cm’s.

The reason for this is the number of Chinook salmon on the Fraser system has been heavily depleted. I would like to see the figures for the total take in this region.

Fed Fisheries says if you witness suspicious fishing activity or a violation call them, translation, ‘if you see someone catch a fish call us”.

Now maybe I’ll get a bite from a Fed fisheries biologist to tell me just how far the Chinook ,”JACK” salmon travel up the river. I have never heard of them being caught here, so it’s alright to open the season because you don’t have to worry about anyone catching a fish, but you get them to spend the money anyway.

Good luck and keep me informed, send pictures of your Fraser or Bowron catch, of course keeping mind that 77cm’s.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 04:44 AM in Views by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: metalman on July 16 2008 7:22 AM

Ben, your cynicism is well warranted.
How about our aboriginal brothers? Are there any restrictions on their fishing?
For those of us who are metrically challenged (I have to convert everything)
77cm. is 30.31" so make sure you have the calipers with you, to prove that your fish is not 30.473" and is therefore legal.
metalman.

Posted by: Mooseman on July 16 2008 7:35 AM

We have a bit of a problem in managing our natural resources in BC. The gov. people in the field are told from above to create and maintain "opportunity". Managing people instead of the fish and wildlife has it's price. I guess that is what happens when politics and not biology is used to manage the resource.

My recommendation would be to introduce a "license for opportunity". No age limit. Cost $99.99/ year
No bag limit: Tarpon, Snook, Barracuda, Shark, Alligators, Polar Bears and Jackalopes.

Oh yea, back on a serious note: What about create and maintain salmon hatcheries. If you Take more money out of your savings account then it produces on interest you have a problem and two choices. 1. Put more money in to the account (hence the hatcheries), or 2. Don't take more then your interest out (all user groups)!!!

Posted by: ammonra on July 16 2008 8:50 AM

It never fails, does it? It doesn't matter what the subject is or how tenuous the connection, someone is bound to make a snide remard about First Nations. Do they spend every waking moment in resentment thinking about other people getting something they don't get themselves? God, what an existance!

AND Yes, compared to a couple of centuries ago, before the Second Nations arrived, they catch a lot fewer salmon. Mind you, by all accounts there were more First Nations people then as they hadn's been killed off by all those European diseases, yet.

Posted by: heidi1555 on July 16 2008 9:08 AM

Hope this link works. Eagleone found it a couple of weeks ago. Extremely interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbOnbrZxGWo

Posted by: lostfaith on July 16 2008 9:16 AM

Think about it Ammonra, if non natives travelled around the province with fish totes in the back of their pickups full of fish for sale without a commercial licence or permit they would be charged and everything confiscated in a heartbeat.

I see nothing wrong with Metalmans question, it is a valid question.

A few years ago during an outbreak of violence on the lower Fraser having to do with salmon fishing, one prominent native leader stated on national tv that they should have killed every white person that came to north america while they had the chance. Nice.

As far as blaming whites for the population decrease of natives in north america, why not move on, all that is history.
We all live here TODAY and all should be equal.
As it is our gov's racist policies in this country are what creates the trouble we see today.

The main reason we see no fish management from our beloved gov's is because they are sick and tired of all the fighting that surrounds the resource and would rather see it disappear than have this battle carry on forever.

Posted by: lostfaith on July 16 2008 9:20 AM

Posted by: heidi1555 on July 16 2008 9:08 AM
Hope this link works. Eagleone found it a couple of weeks ago. Extremely interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbOnbrZxGWo

I will take the credit for that Heidi.

Posted by: heidi1555 on July 16 2008 9:28 AM

Oh sorry lostfaith I was talking facebook. Didn't realize you found it before this.
Excellent find!
:)

Posted by: lostfaith on July 16 2008 9:40 AM

LOL n/p Heidi
It makes me sad to see what some people are doing to our fish and to see/hear some people condone it.
I try to do what I can to get the message out there but am faced with some people that are benefitting from the destruction of our wild salmon stocks. You know who you are and should be ashamed of yourselves. More people need to get involved with saving our fish.
Once they are gone it's to late.

Buying open netpen farmed salmon from your local grocer is not helping.

Posted by: getajob on July 16 2008 10:34 AM

Good question Metalman! Does anyone know the answer to it?

To be honest i never could figure out why you would want to eat a have rotten spawner anyway.

Posted by: diplomat on July 16 2008 10:46 AM

"Mind you, by all accounts there were more First Nations people then as they hadn't been killed off by all those European diseases, yet."

I seem to remember from my history lessons that one third of the population of Europe was killed by bubonic plague, a disease that spread from India via rats/fleas to Europe by ship.

It's called the Black Death - can we blame India for not controlling its diseases?

Did the Europeans leave Europe to come here with the intent to spread some of the diseases which they carried? These could be deadly to them too if they had not developed some immunity to them already.

Most of them were simple farmers and laborers - they didn't know about viruses and germs and how they can spread.

Tobacco smoking (a First Nations habit) was introduced to white people when they arrived here and to other races as well. I am sure that lung cancer from smoking has killed hundreds of millions of people already - so who can be blamed for that, if the blame game always needs to played?

Posted by: ammonra on July 16 2008 11:35 AM

The plague came via flees on rats. The Black Death may have been a variat of that, although it is not absolutely certain, I understand. At any rate, it was not people who deliberately spread it, except in the practice of lobbing infected dead bodies into cities to deliberately spread it.

The equivalent in North America was the practice of distributing blankets which came from people who dies of smallpox, done deliberately to spread the disease among aboriginals. The result was the availability of more land for those farmers and labourers from Europe.

Among First Nations tobacco was not a "habit" but a sacred plant used in religious ritual. It wasn't smoked for the pleasure of drug addiction and doing so is considered to be a misuse of a sacred plant. For the effects of recreational smoking blame the Europeans themselves, as they introduced it to the European market as a commercial money maker.

Metalman's question was a rhetorical question, not asked for information but as a complaint. From his own, and others', past comments on this forum he obviously already knows the answer to the question. As I said, a snide remark.

I am sure there are ignorant First Nations people as well as there are ignorant Europeans, and Africans, and Asians, and mixtures of each with any of the others. Thank you for drawing attention to the obvious, lostfaith.

Statements that promote a revision of historical events as that aboriginal person made have little validity, but the actual historical events most certainly do have validity. The present is rooted in the past, and selecting specific elements of the past to forget is to distort the present. Reconciliation means recognising and acknowledging what happened and why. If someone like Harper can do it, can't you?

Posted by: Mooseman on July 16 2008 11:55 AM

Is this a fish management subject thread ?

Posted by: getajob on July 16 2008 12:01 PM

It's a more like a fish mismanagement thread,that went off topic for some odd reason.

Posted by: ammonra on July 16 2008 12:04 PM

I would also suggest that the main reason for the decline in wild salmon numbers is the commercial fishery, not the aboriginal fishery. Aboriginal people fished and traded the fish for millennia with no effect on the numbers of fish spawning.

It was only when fishing in the sea and in the mouth of the rivers with long nets and hundreds of boats began that the numbers of salmon began to decline, until we reach the situation today. Declining stocks is predominantly due to commercial overfishing. Effects from aboriginal fishing are of concern because the stocks are in decline for other reasons, not as a significant cause in its own right. A truckload of salmon may look a lot, but is minor compared to the numbers in the holds of 50 trawlers, after all.

I do agree about farmed salmon. These fish should be raised in land based containment ponds. That is commonly done for other species like tilapia and there is no reason that it can't be done for salmon. Filtering the sea water used through a large sand column before returning it to the sea would effectively remove all the parasites I should think.

Posted by: ammonra on July 16 2008 12:09 PM

By the way, my eldest sone lives in Burns Lake and is an avid fisherman. He fishes for salmon all the time, usually with flies.

Go to that river system, he tells me it is still extremely good.

Posted by: diplomat on July 16 2008 12:32 PM

http://www.thefurtrapper.com/indian_smallpox.htm

More on the deliberate acts of handing out smallpox infected blankets - where, when and how often.

This website also points out that Natives did not heed warnings to stay away from smallpox infected trading posts as they wanted to trade their furs.

"Is this a fish management subject thread ?"

It was until somebody asked an inconvenient question or an unappreciated question, to be more precise.

Posted by: kevin1006 on July 16 2008 12:34 PM

Until we change our value system the Salmon are doomed...just watch. Extinction is on the way because humans are selfish and greedy, nothing more or less. The denial that it is our value system that is killing planet Earth is the enemy, an enemy hardly anyone wants to see because it is the average person that is killing the Salmon with their life style and sick value system.

So keep it up... and do what everyone does: blame somebody else.

Posted by: getajob on July 16 2008 12:35 PM

IMO I think that, anyone that, uses a net, hook, gaff, fish wheel, trap ect has contributed to the depletion of fish stocks .....

No one can step back and blame just one party on this issue! That is the ingredients� of never reaching a resolution.

Posted by: diplomat on July 16 2008 1:04 PM

kevin1006, there are still a few glimmers of hope that with right thinking, right planning and right action things can be gradually turned around for the benefit of all mankind, but the opportunities are dwindling fast.

I agree with your take on mankind's irrational behaviour - it's happening in plain sight every day.

As you and many others already know, the endless finger pointing and blaming (often for things that happened half a millennium ago!) doesn't accomplish anything except stir new hatreds and resentments.

I for one did not do them, would not have done them, condemn them - AND, I will not take any BLAME for them and will not go on any guilt trip since I am not guilty of anything in respect to past historical treatments of anybody anywhere. I am only responsible for the things I have done in MY life.

Bad things happened, they can't be revisited to be rerun better or undone. The past is the past. The living are living now.

Whoever wishes to feel guilty or responsible, go ahead - make my day.

Cheers!

Posted by: caranmacil on July 16 2008 1:10 PM

If there has ever been an issue where people point fingers it is this one. The commercial fishermen blame the sportsmen and natives and vici versa. Non aboriginals are jealous of aboriginal fishing rights (understandably) and aboriginals blame the 'white guys' in a general, all encompassing way ( also understandable). All parties do what they can to maintain and maximize their share of the resource. Then, when things go wrong, we all use our 20:20 hindsight to blame DFO.
I do question the wisdom of native coomercial fisheries (and thus dont support them. I also have a hard time defending an industry where commercial fishing boats, worth millions, have reached the level of efficiency where the season has to be reduced to mere hours.
Conservation and management of wild fisheries is, on the face of it pretty simple. Catch only what the population can support. In actuality it is a logistical nightmare. One has to estimate fish populations in a system with hundreds of variables, then allocate the resource to competing factions secure in the knowledge that no matter what you do, people will scream at you. Add a dash of political interference into the mix and you have the job of the DFO.
On a personal note, i cant say that i have EVER been on a financially profitable fishing trip, regardless of the limit. WHile i do enjoy (and in fact insist ) on being able to keep some of my catch i have to admit that it will not make or break my fishing trip if i can only keep one salmon. The fact is, I already spent a lot more than a cooler full of fish would have cost me just getting out there.

Posted by: lostfaith on July 16 2008 2:52 PM

On a bit of a different note although fishing related.

When a person is away from their ordinary place of residence they are allowed to have in their possession twice the daily limit.
I travel 500 miles and spend thousands of dollars just to bring back 4 fish for my freezer.
A person that lives next to the same body of water where I caught my 4 fish is allowed to catch their daily limit every day the fishing is open.
If the regs allow 2 fish per day and the season lasts for two months then just
imagine how full the locals freezers get.

In fact during some of the past Sockeye seasons on the lower Fraser river I know of groups of people that have a friend with a processing facility that when everyone in the group catches their limits, This person legally transports with proper documentation, all those fish to his facility and processes them.
That allows more fish to be legally caught and kept by out of towners. Imagine repeating this process over and over for a month.

Some of these families enjoyed 100 sockeye seasons.

Posted by: downnotout on July 16 2008 9:32 PM

you want a native fishery then they should catch those fish the same way that they used to not with the fancy boats and electronic gear the nets and long lines that stretch for miles. If you use the modern gear then you should have to fallow modern rules like the rest of us.

Posted by: Mooseman on July 17 2008 7:44 AM

downnotout,
And that brings it back to the point.

They manage the resource with politics and not by what can be taken out of the water!

The west coast river comment from further up is BS. I make a living at guiding in those waters and I can tell you that the rivers are all managed for people and not the fish. Quality and quantity is not what it was 20 years or more ago. The politicians have no spine to call a spate a spate. And the bureaucrats just follow policies and guidelines that try to please everyone but the fish.

There was another comment made above where it was mentioned that DFO has it so rough. Sorry, but I feel that it is their responsibility to manage our waters and salmon in such a matter that our kids and grandkids still know what a salmon looks like. Right now they are not managing for long term sustainability.

I'll give you an example: Take any river. Lets say it has a spring salmon run of 15.000. Lets say you can take 5.000 out, leaving 10.000 to spawn and that will provide a good base for the return year in 5 years or so.
Ok, how would you do that?

Here is how it is done right now: Each resident or non-resident with a valid fishing license and salmon stamp can take one spring salmon a day, two in possession and ten a year. The ten a year is only logistically possible for the people that live close by. Then you have unknown take out by poaching and first nations. And oh yea, the number of people fishing the river is not limited anywhere (perhaps the Dean)!
The result: No control over harvest levels and we find out 5 years later that 5 years ago someone made a mistake because back then we had no control over how many fish got taken.
Now you have a bad return year and you have still no control over how many fish get taken. Right. Because now we will do a study first. So the low return year gets hammered again. Guess what the run looks like in 5 years from now!

Indians, white, black or yellow. I don't really care about the color. I care that all our grandkids will most likely not get to go fishing for salmon in 30 years. Because we all messed it up and blamed the next guy.

Since we are all to stupid to do what needs to get done to save the resource. DFO has the ability and responsibility to fix it! Call it tough love, but get managing the fish so that we have some left for later.

Just my 2cents worth,
Mooseman

Posted by: metalman on July 17 2008 9:40 AM

I would like to go on record that I am not a person who is predjudiced against other races, creeds or colours. I have always believed that we are all equal in the view of Mother nature. We are all born more or less the same way, and, as far as I know, we can all expect to expire, eventually.
Ammonra, from his comments, is obviously an educated, intelligent person. I infer from his comments that he is of aboriginal descent, because he seems to be stuck on the notion of 'us against them' Sir, if you are convinced that my opinion is frivolous (snide) then so be it. My opinion is that the whole affair that we are debating here, and many other issues, have been mismanaged and manipulated by a succession of governments. The facts remain, the salmon runs are declining. Forget who is to blame and who has been mistreated, the fish are not coming back anymore, so let us fix that. It is not predjudice to say that Indians should not be fishing either, when the species is possibly in serious decline.
metalman.

Posted by: ammonra on July 17 2008 10:16 AM

As I have said before, I am not aboriginal, neither wholly nor in part.

Posted by: lostfaith on July 17 2008 2:01 PM

Great post Mooseman.
Everyone seems to think "WE" are to blame for all thats wrong with our Salmon stocks.
We the people are not the ones at fault here.
We live in a parliamentary dictatorship and the fisheries in this country are the responsibility of our GOV. Thats the bottom line.
Our GOV doesn't seem to want to listen to the peoples concerns regarding what we see as whats best for our fish.

THEY DON'T LISTEN BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE

Please stop blaming the citizens for the loss of our Salmon or anything else we have lost or will lose that is under the direct control of our GOV.

Posted by: diplomat on July 17 2008 2:45 PM

Metalman: "Forget who is to blame and who has been mistreated,..."

Well said! That applies to many other aspects of our daily lives too!