Sockeye Alerni

[SeaScene]

Must be a helluva run. Sailed up the inlet 2 days ago to Alberni. Wall to wall boats and fishing "ships" not the little commercial boats docked everywhere on this coast. What a haul. The monster sized machines needed all of the huge hoist they have to lift the room sized nets plugged with sockeye... at least when I went by. Next few days it was line up time for the trucking industry to haul it all away. Today, fisherman wharf is plugged with the smaller commercial boats from all over the BC coast. So... is this a record year for sockeye or has DFO been lobbied (bought off) again?

[Wentrot]

DFO has been a sell out for many years.

[SeaScene]

DFO one of the most lobbied ministries in the country.

"Lobbying is legalized bribery" ... Chris Hedges

DFO has been a sell out for many years.

[MichelD]

Re. June 29 seine opening The target catch for this opening is 85,000 sockeye.

The June 25 reforecast for Somass sockeye increases the runsize from 900 K to
1.2 million. The commercial allocation for Seine and Gillnet at this run-size
is 470,725. Seine allocation is 282,435. Seine catch to date is 50,437.
Gillnet allocation is 188,290. Gill net catch to date is approximately
86,000.

Gillnet fishermen would appreciate it if sport boaters would realize that cutting across the middle of a net will shorten their pleasure boating day and possible cause hundreds of dollars damage to a net and possibly the outboard motor too.

[goatdancer]

The " new " forecast is for 1.2 million fish and the allocation is 941,000 fish which leaves 259,000 for spawning purposes. Does DFO have any clue of the numbers taken by FNs? Is there any allocation for sport fishers?
With the amazing degree of inaccuracy of the forecasts that DFO is capable of producing, is there any room for error?

[SeaScene]

The " new " forecast is for 1.2 million fish and the allocation is 941,000 fish which leaves 259,000 for spawning purposes. Does DFO have any clue of the numbers taken by FNs? Is there any allocation for sport fishers?
With the amazing degree of inaccuracy of the forecasts that DFO is capable of producing, is there any room for error?

Arrogance and greed. In nature it will be "pay as you play".

[tinhorse]

Was out fishing yesterday and we had our limits by 7:15. Hundreds and hundreds of boats and everybody catching them. Pink hootchies (small) , black hootchies (small) or a plain black hook. All fish caught between 65 and 50 feet. Get out there and get some before the commercial guys clean them out. There were commercial boats there also dragging in huge amounts of fish. Later that morning I took the kids to papermill dam and went swimming in the pool, not a single sockeye was seen besides a couple dead ones at the bottom of the pool. 4 years from now may be a slowww year for sockeye fishing if we dont get a huge rain and get some fish up the river to spawn.

[MichelD]

Going there to help a buddy on his gillnetter tomorrow.

[Dutch Ppoacher]

The run isn't a bumper crop, it is slightly below average. This seasons heat wave has made conditions favorible for sport and commercial fisherman alike. It has actully slowed FN fishery a little due to the lack of river migrating fish.
As noted above the DFO count is cutting escapment short if they want 200,000/lake.
I just recently was told by dfo that they figure the run is just peeking this week or next, i just hope that closers are put in place sooner then later to keep escapment levels up so that nature die off numbers with the up coming water temps will not effect them adversly
i believe there is going to be more restrictions to commercial fishing areas this week as well