Fraser River Closed for Salmon

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sign of things to come?


CTV British Columbia
Published Thursday, August 15, 2013 6:27PM PDT

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is imposing a salmon fishing ban on the Fraser River beginning Thursday night.
Fishing for any salmon species is being suspended between the Alexandra Bridge south of Boston Bar to the Mission Bridge connecting Abbotsford to Mission.
The DFO said it has resorted to the ban in an attempt to conserve this year’s low salmon population, which was originally forecast at 4.7 million but now appears to be roughly half that.
Record-high water temperatures in the Fraser, which diminish the salmons’ ability to swim and contribute to disease outbreaks, are blamed in part for the dismal numbers.
All commercial and recreational fisheries along the Skeena River have already been closed due to a historic low sockeye return.
Just 453,000 sockeye are expected to swim the Skeena this year, compared to roughly 2.4 million last year, making for one of the worst runs in 50 years on the river.
This year’s run consists of offspring from the 2009 sockeye collapse, where just 1.5 million of the salmon showed up on the Fraser despite early predictions for 10 million.
B.C. enjoyed a banner year in 2010, however, with roughly 35 million sockeye on the Fraser alone.
News of this year’s ban came as environmentalists began sounding the alarm about alleged improper fishing practice’s along B.C.’s coasts that may have unnecessarily killed thousands of salmon.
The Watershed Watch group said boats targeting pink salmon in northern fisheries are inadvertently catching more than 165,000 salmon of other species, and sometimes letting them die before throwing them back into the water.
The group has posted video online that it claims is proof of the practice. The DFO said the footage is problematic, and warrants further investigation.


Read more: http://bc.ctvnews.ca/ban-coming-for-salmon-fishing-on-fraser-river-1.1413417#ixzz2c8JmesZa

 

[BASSMASTER19]

dang, as much as we need it here i hope it dosent happen

 

[screaminreel]

It's a sad state of affairs when you see a great fishery like that depleted. Take this as a lesson fellow anglers (most forum members are quite considerate) safe fish handling, c & r, and the Ministry Laws are all in place for a reason.

 

[BASSMASTER19]

It's a sad state of affairs when you see a great fishery like that depleted. Take this as a lesson fellow anglers (most forum members are quite considerate) safe fish handling, c & r, and the Ministry Laws are all in place for a reason.

but they cant be everywhere to enforce them so alas its a dieing effort

 

[float^drifter]

thats what we need here shut down the rivers let the fish spawn.

 

[zvonmonet]

any law helps, it might not make it perfect but it sure keeps a few people in check

 

[remyboy1]

imagine how many people talked about the great places to fish on that river to turn in into a "closed" fishery...

 

[Float_down]

thats what we need here shut down the rivers let the fish spawn.

People seem to forget that our great lakes salmon and steel (especially in lake O) are strictly recreational. In BC alot of people rely on these fish as means of living. Shutting down anything in Ontario would do absolutely no good.

I'm more then happy to catch one or two a day, 30 fish days happen all the time, so i'm still kind
Of confused with my some people are still pushing to close rivers and decrease limits, not that i go out to get my limit. It's realistic to say that our fishery will probably never die, and if it did, our native species will probably be much better off.
I live for float fishing, I honestly do. Have almost lost my job because of it, but I see a bigger picture. A lack of commercial fishing (Erie and Ontario) only concludes to the soul purpose of sport fishing. These fish are not native. What would you guys be doing without them?

 

[Rain-Bow]

Here in the great lakes we can stock a ton of fish and it'll pay off, but out in the west coast it doesn't seem to work so shutting down fishing seems to be their only option since they won't go to the root of the problem which is fish farms and damming.

 

[AaronKrick]

The fraser is the snagger capital of the world. Go there at night and puke on all the douchebags with they're 20 oz spoon

 

[Icehut]

It shows to go you... we actually CAN kill every fish in the ocean, if we want to.

The wildly swinging return numbers are puzzling.

 

[[email protected]]

Here in the great lakes we can stock a ton of fish and it'll pay off, but out in the west coast it doesn't seem to work so shutting down fishing seems to be their only option since they won't go to the root of the problem which is fish farms and damming.

no we can't just stock fish and be happy, look at lake huron, the salmon and trout populations are hurting because the lack of bait fish, here on lake ontario, we have a ton of bait fish, lake huron....not so much