Salmon Fishing Vancouver

Today was a bitter sweet day. For the first time all sunmer I went DNA sampling for Fraser chinook. We fished for a set time period of 3.5 hours and sampled e...very fish that made it to the boat. There are a lot of fish around, just like last year. The amount of fish present is incredible. That is the sweet part of the day. If you were out in the third week of August last year you know what I mean. In my opinion all chinook encountered were 100% non endangered stocks, likely South Thompson 4.1. The DNA is going to prove this. They were all between 12 and 18 pounds at the most. The bitter part of the day is there should be a Public Fishery for these chinook. We can selectively fish for them with bait and take 1 a day, max 10 a year, with no threat to sturgeon or sockeye. Meanwhile there have been many First Nation chinook gill net openings in the Fraser and thousands of chinook have been killed by indiscriminate gill nets that are also killing sturgeon, sockeye (on the worst run on record) and endangered summer steelhead and summer coho. The fact there is no opportunity for Canadian citizens under the veil of conservation while hundreds of gill nets hang in the river is disgusting. This has nothing to do with conservation, this has to do with reallocation of a Canadian resource, culture, and economy to First Nation. DFO... How dare you use the word conservation in your closure of the Public Chinook Fishery off Vancouver from April 1 to Sep 1 then allow gill nets in the river to kill thousands of chinook, countless sturgeon and sockeye (on a year there are basically none). @justinpjtrudeau @bernadettejordanmp @fisheriesoceanscan should be ashamed of how they have managed chinook this season and senior management should resign (you know who you are). Go on Justin’s and Bernadette’s Instagram and leave them a message that you won’t put up with this gross miss management. Get involved. Join the @publicfisheryalliance and @sfiofbc. Donate your time or cash or your skill set. Let’s band together and put a stop to this! #wefishhere #fishforall #weareallcanadians #oneresourceforall #oneadayisehokay @ Vancouver, British Columbia See more

Today was a bitter sweet day. For the first time all sunmer I went DNA sampling for Fraser chinook. We fished for a set time period of 3.5 hours and sampled e...very fish that made it to the boat. There are a lot of fish around, just like last year. The amount of fish present is incredible. That is the sweet part of the day. If you were out in the third week of August last year you know what I mean. In my opinion all chinook encountered were 100% non endangered stocks, likely South Thompson 4.1. The DNA is going to prove this. They were all between 12 and 18 pounds at the most. The bitter part of the day is there should be a Public Fishery for these chinook. We can selectively fish for them with bait and take 1 a day, max 10 a year, with no threat to sturgeon or sockeye. Meanwhile there have been many First Nation chinook gill net openings in the Fraser and thousands of chinook have been killed by indiscriminate gill nets that are also killing sturgeon, sockeye (on the worst run on record) and endangered summer steelhead and summer coho. The fact there is no opportunity for Canadian citizens under the veil of conservation while hundreds of gill nets hang in the river is disgusting. This has nothing to do with conservation, this has to do with reallocation of a Canadian resource, culture, and economy to First Nation. DFO... How dare you use the word conservation in your closure of the Public Chinook Fishery off Vancouver from April 1 to Sep 1 then allow gill nets in the river to kill thousands of chinook, countless sturgeon and sockeye (on a year there are basically none). @justinpjtrudeau @bernadettejordanmp @fisheriesoceanscan should be ashamed of how they have managed chinook this season and senior management should resign (you know who you are). Go on Justin’s and Bernadette’s Instagram and leave them a message that you won’t put up with this gross miss management. Get involved. Join the @publicfisheryalliance and @sfiofbc. Donate your time or cash or your skill set. Let’s band together and put a stop to this! #wefishhere #fishforall #weareallcanadians #oneresourceforall #oneadayisehokay @ Vancouver, British Columbia See more

What are YOU going to do about this Fisheries and Oceans Canada John Horgan Bernadette Jordan ? Anyone want to tell me why we still don’t have selective fishing...? Why do we allow unsustainable practices? Why do we accept so called experts saying the impacts are minimal? What are they hiding and why? Wake up people, we are watching mixed wild stock species disappear infront of our eyes. #selectivefishing

The Government Doesn’t Care About BC’s Public Fishers It’s obvious that the Government doesn’t care about British Columbia’s public fishers. This post by Jaso...n Tonelli provides a perfect and insightful snapshot of the 2020 Chinook Management Measures that was released on June 19th. This is why the Public Fishery Alliance needs your membership and support as your public fisheries are all under attack from this federal government. We all need to work together to keep the access to our remaining public fisheries. Read this post below. When you are done please go here and join the PFA => https://publicfisheryalliance.ca/membership-sign-up/ 2020 Chinook Management Measures - Our Response As many of you know, I have taken it upon myself to be involved in the management of our public fisheries as best I can. I am currently a Director at the Sport Fishing Institute of BC, I am President of the Vancouver Sport Fishing Guides Association, and I am Chair of the Lower Fraser Valley Sport Fish Advisory Committee which is part of the Sport Fish Advisory Board process to DFO. At this time, I am taking all those hats off and writing to you as a fellow Canadian who is deeply concerned by the DFO 2020 fisheries management measures to protect Fraser chinook, announced yesterday afternoon. These are my views and mine alone, and it is time someone said something, because enough is enough. So please read on. June 19, 2020 will go down as a historic day, and for all the wrong reasons. It will be remembered as the day chinook fishing out of Vancouver was closed, your rights as a Canadian citizen were trampled on, and the day DFO made it clear they have no respect for the public fishery, science, and due process. Today I am going to break down the regulations for you, then I am going to show you the science, then I am going to tell you why this happened. So, let’s get the closure out of the way, because I know most of you are trying to make sense of it and want to know if you can go fishing. If you want to see the full scale and impact of the measures go to this link 2020 Fraser Chinook Management Measures. Below I am going to focus on the Vancouver area fisheries. Here is the Fisheries Notice that impacts our local fisheries. For Strait of Georgia - South and Juan de Fuca - Areas 18, Subareas 19-3 to 19-12, Subareas 20-3 to 20-7, Area 28 and Subareas 29-3 to 29-5 (with the exception of those portions of Areas 28 and 29 listed in the section below), and Subarea 29-8. Immediately to 23:59 hours July 31: Chinook non-retention; 00:01 hours August 1 to 23:59 hours August 31: 1 Chinook per day with a maximum size limit of 80 cm; 00:01 hours September 1 to 23:59 hours December 31: 2 Chinook per day (no maximum size limit, min size limit 62 cm). For Portions of Southern Strait of Georgia, Howe Sound and Burrard Inlet - Subareas 28-7 to 28-9; that portion of Subarea 28-2 that lies southerly of a line drawn due east from Halkett Point on Gambier Island (49 26.735'N, 123 19.302'W) to a point (49 26.550'N, 123 14.317'W) on the mainland corresponding with the southeast point of the Lions Bay RCA; and those portions of 29-3 to 29-5 that lie east of a line from Gower Point (49 23.021'N, 123 32.166' W) near Gibsons to Shah Point on the southern tip of Valdes Island (49 01.695'N, 123 35.721'W) Immediately to 23:59 hours August 31: No fishing for Chinook. 00:01 hours September 1 to 23:59 hours December 31: 2 Chinook per day. (no maximum size limit, min size limit 62 cm). Approaches to Fraser River - Subareas 29-6, 29-7, 29-9 to 29-17 and the non-tidal waters of the Fraser River from Mission Bridge to the confluence with Sawmill Creek: 00:01 Hours January 1 to 23:59 Hours November 1: No fishing for salmon (Fishing opportunities for specific salmon stocks may be considered at a later date). So, the text in red is represented in this map as the pink cross hatched area. You can no longer fish for chinook in this area effective immediately until September 1st. That means no chinook fishing this summer off the Fraser. No Bell Buoy, N Arm, T-10, South Arm. Forget about your favorite Howe Sound spots and Bowen spots. No Hole in the Wall, Cowan, Roger Curtis, Hump, Salmon Rock, Grace, all closed to fishing for chinook. Next year they will push to have this regulation in place for April 1, 2021, so in effect spring and summer chinook fishing out of Vancouver is over unless we do something about it this year and stand up for our rights to access stocks of non-concern and hatchery chinook. Here are some of the opportunities where you can fish for chinook C&R, retain chinook later in the summer, or fish for coho: You can fish for coho in most of the areas on the above map and the Area 28 and Area 29 regs (our local waters) are currently 2 hatchery a day, over 30 cm. In the non-cross hatched pink areas April 1 to July 31: No retention of chinook (C&R permitted). Aug 1 to Aug 31: 1 chinook per day, max 80 cm. Sept 1 to Dec 31: 2 chinook per day (min size 62 cm, no max size limit). You can fish for chinook in the Strait of Georgia North (blue part of map) Areas 13 to 17, Subareas 29-1 and 29-2: April 1 to July 14: No retention of chinook (C&R permitted). July 15 to Aug 31: 1 chinook per day, max 80 cm. Sept 1 to Dec 31: 2 chinook per day (min size 62 cm, no max size limit). I hope this clears up where you can’t even fish for chinook, yes that means no C&R (catch and release), where you can fish for chinook but you can’t retain them (you can practice C&R), and finally when and where you can fish for chinook and retain them. So, let’s talk about some of the science. If you read the DFO press release it is going to tell you these closures are to protect stocks of concern. They will even tell you they are closing the August chinook fishery off the Fraser for the healthy runs of Thomson 4.1 chinook because there is too much interceptions of earlier run timing stocks of concern. In short, this is all propaganda. Here is a pie chart showing the public fishery encounter rate in our local waters and a bit further south. This area is called inside waters. I have put the stocks of concern in red. You can see we have a very low encounter rate. The next graph shows the run timing of the different chinook stocks. You can see when the bulk of the 4.1 chinook are coming into the Fraser, the earlier run timing 4.2 and 5.2 chinook stocks of concern are long gone. Data based on returns to Fraser River at the Albion chinook test fishery (2000-2001). Based on the fact we are encountering stocks of concern 1% or less and the fact they are not present during the peak of the 4.1 chinook migration, then I hope you are asking yourself why we are closed April 1 to Sep 1 in 2020, and in particular, August. DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans), ENGOs (environmental non-government organization) and FN (First Nations) will tell you that the public fishery needs to be closed to protect and save stocks of concern. Well how does closing a fishery down that barely impacts stocks of concern save a stock(s)? The truth is it doesn’t have any meaningful impact at all. We are talking about managing fractions of a percentage here. So why do they do it? Well they do it because is make it look like DFO is making management decisions to save the stocks. It’s all smoke and mirror designed to make them look good and hide the fact that management decisions are not being made on science but are being made by politicians eager to cater to FN and ENGOs. In the meantime, while all this is happening, there are FN gill net openings (just like last year) in the Fraser for the very chinook DFO is trying to protect by shutting us down. The truth is DFO has no major plans in place to fix the devastated habitat, they have no plans to reduce the seal population that consumes over 40% of all out migrating chinook smolts from the Fraser, they have limited ability to curtail illegal gill nets in the Fraser, and they have no desire to stand up to First Nations in court. Instead they close the public chinook fishery because to the general public it looks like they are doing the right thing and that means votes. Of course, there are politics at play here as well. Lower Fraser River First Nations have made it abundantly clear in their comments on the Integrated Fisheries Management Plan that they are not pleased with public fishery off the Fraser mouth. ENGOs have repeatedly called for the closure of chinook fisheries and catch and release fishing. DFO has clearly decided to listen to FN and ENGOs and push science-based decisions, logic, common sense, and their duty to manage the resource for all Canadians, aside. In all the meetings and consultation processes that I am involved in, not once was this level of closure discussed. This closure is about one thing and one thing only, and that is the systematic destruction of the public fishery, the re-allocation of those fish to FN for harvest, and catering to FN and ENGOs for votes. The August closure is very telling as this is the time of year when stocks of concern are gone, and healthy stocks are prevalent. So, let’s look at last August when FN harvested 25,000 Fraser chinook and the public fishery harvested 7,000. These are the non-stock of concern chinook, also known as Thompson 4.1 as per the pie chart and graph above. Normally we would harvest about 3,500 but we all know how good the fishing was last year and there was a closure for 3 months prior, so effort and success was high. I don’t have a problem with FN taking 25,000 fish, although it was done by gill net and certainly had a negative impact on sturgeon, summer coho, and summer steelhead. I do have a problem though when FN gets on the news and complains about the public fishery off the Fraser Mouth and then literally tells the media (via TV and newspaper articles) there was not enough fish for their elders. Where did the 25,000 fish go? Apparently not to the right people and it sounds like 25,000 isn’t enough because they want exclusive access and they just got it. On top of this ENGOs are publishing articles and spreading simple verbiage that there is a chinook crisis while the reality is many rivers in the inside waters had excellent returns of chinook, some at record or near record levels. With the public fishery for chinook closed all spring and summer, what is going to happen this August? Are the gill nets coming out of the river? Will the healthy stocks of non-concern be left to pass up a gill net free Fraser? I think we all know the answer to this question. Surely if the low impact we have as the public fishery is worthy of a closure there should be no gill netting in the Fraser. The answer is of course no, there will be in season gill net openings and any fish saved from the Fraser mouth closure will be re-allocated to FN harvest while your boat rots at the dock. Like I said earlier, enough is enough. As Canadians, we also have rights to access the resource, especially when we aren’t impacting stocks of concern or they just aren’t present. DFO was given very specific options that check these boxes by the Sport Fish Advisory Board. What we got back were huge closures designed to have maximum optical benefit and were squarely designed to get us off the water once and for all and appease FN and ENGO interests. Yes, FN has priority access to fish, but when the Canadian public fishery is encountering stocks of concerns less than 1%, or not all, we should be on the water. We should be allowed to harvest a chinook for our families, to teach our kids to fish and respect nature, and at the very least we should be able to harvest a hatchery chinook. This was explained to DFO at the highest levels and backed by area specific science. Look at the results. For that the Fisheries Minister and the Managers associated with these measures should be ashamed of themselves. I truly don’t know how they can look a fellow Canadian in the eye. DFO has gone too far, this government has gone too far, and I am tired of the two-tier management approach where the rights of all Canadians, regardless of origin, are trampled on. The advisory process and any trust that has been built up with it has been destroyed. The time for drastic action is now. YOU need to do something about this before there is no fishing period, and believe me, we are almost there. DFO won’t listen to science but they will listen to votes and that’s where you come in. This is about politics, optics, and votes, nothing more. Join groups that are pushing science based messages to DFO, like the Sport Fishing Institute of BC or the Public Fishery Alliance that advocates for access to sustainable fisheries. Write an email to these people and tell them enough is enough and you aren’t going to take this sitting down and tell them how you are going to vote. DFO’s Pacific Salmon Team: [email protected] Bernadette Jordan, Fisheries Minister [email protected] Rebecca Reid, DFO Regional Director General [email protected] Andrew Thomson, DFO Regional Director [email protected] Terri Bonnet, DFO Area Director, Fraser & Interior [email protected] Dean Allan, Resource Management Program Co-ordinator [email protected] Jeff Grout, DFO Regional Resource Manager [email protected] You better believe there are going to be some protests as well. This is it, DFO has made it clear they don’t care about science-based decisions, the public fishery, your rights, coastal communities, tourism, and the local economy and social value of fishing in general. So, get involved, your ability to fish and that of future generations depends on it. Concerned Canadian, Jason Tonelli Contact your local member of parliament and ask them why you are unjustifiably being denied your access to public fishing in British Columbia. https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/search?province=BC @Ken Hardie - Member of Parliament, Fleetwood - Port Kells @Ed Fast @Terry Beech, MP @Patrick Weiler, MP @Mel Arnold, MP Bernadette Jordan

While the David Suzuki Foundation was putting the final touches on their "Don't hook a chinook" propaganda article, David Suzuki himself was up in Haida Gwaii.......hooking chinook! What an absolute hypocritical organization and leader. Not only is David Suzuki and his foundation evidently hypocritical, but they are scapegoating the public fishery and FAILING to act in the best interests of threatened Fraser River Chinook Salmon. DNA and Coded Wired Tag Data has PROVEN that marine impacts on threatened 4-2 and 4-2 Fraser chinook are very limited . With the DFO working around an 0.8 percent explotation rate on threatened Fraser Stock in recreational and commercial fisheries in marine areas in 2019, it is shameful that the David Suzuki Foundation is clearly ignoring this DFO data in order to mislead the Canadian public. The BC coast is trying to enjoy an excellent year of chinook abundance and rightfully so. I am sure David Suzuki himself witnessed the fabulous chinook fishing on his sport fishing vacation during the week of July 5th, 2019. Speaking of Fraser River Chinook stocks of concern, the David Suzuki Foundation surely has the DFO data showing that Marine Fisheries have insignificant impacts on 5-2 and 4-2 chinook with management restrictions utilized in recent years. As scientists, why is there no push to halt the daily gill netting in the Fraser River on the exact stocks of concern, or no talk of seal predation on outgoing chinook smolts,or no action on middle/upper Fraser enhancement programs, or no action or talk to push for swift action on Upper Fraser Watersheds in the face of a changing climate. Are they in bed with the Federal Government.. it is becoming very clear. Why are they not celebrating the incredible abundance of chinook overall this year in BC Waters? Save the orcas, save the salmon, and do not listen to the Hypocrital David Suzuki Foundation. Georgia Strait Alliance Jonathan Wilkinson Ken Hardie - MP, Fleetwood-Port Kells Todd Doherty, MP

Please join a peaceful protest of DFO’s decision to close recreational fishing to the retention of chinook. Protest Location and Time: May 1, 2019 from 12 to ...1 PM at Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s, 102 W 3 Street, North Vancouver. Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and DFO have announced large blanket closures which are an ineffective way to manage the recovery of early Fraser River chinook stocks. There is no scientific data to support the effectiveness of these closures. The announcement has serious and substantial socioeconomic impacts on coastal communities. We’re encouraging all concerned individuals, groups and businesses to join us to protest the following and push for a sustainable solution. The reality is DFO is shutting down one distinct Chinook fishery and user group so they can shut down another user group on completely different stocks of Chinook salmon. This closure to chinook salmon retention will do nothing to protect the chinook stocks that need protecting. The closure has been done for political reasons and is mismanagement of the resource at the highest level! We want to make it very clear to Minister Wilkinson that to shut down the entire south coast so they can attempt to reduce First Nation in river impacts on interior Fraser chinook is not acceptable! The Recreational Fishery has proven through CWT and DNA submission that there is very little interception of threatened Fraser River Chinook Stocks in the Strait of Georgia. In 2018, DNA shows that less than 1 percent of the total recreational catch was of Fraser Stocks of Concern. To say the DFO did not have sustainable Chinook retention options in the spring and early summer in Areas 13 to 19 is simply not true. The same can be said for the West Coast of Vancouver Island and from Campbell River to Port Hardy. The Recreational sector is committed to conservation, enhancement initiatives and standing up to politically motivated management decisions. The closures to chinook retention in our local area between Vancouver and Nanaimo include Bowen Island, Howe Sound, Sunshine Coast and Gabriola Island. These areas have been experiencing amazing chinook fishing (for non-interior Fraser stocks) for the last 10 years. This closure is being done for the opportunity to keep First Nations nets out of the Fraser to save interior Fraser stocks. Minister Wilkinson and DFO need to recognize that the chinook salmon that are off Bowen Island and across to Nanaimo are not early Fraser stocks of concern. DFO has confirmed this through CWT (coded wire tag ) data and DNA sampling. The resulting data clearly shows that the fish we catch in those areas are not the Fraser River stocks of concern we need to protect. This is a scientific fact, not speculation. The fish we are catching in the Spring and Early Summer are known are mainly East Coast Vancouver Island, Puget Sound, Fall Run Fraser River Stocks of hatchery origin. A mere 10 percent of Canadian hatchery Chinook salmon are clipped. There is no conservation concern for these stocks and a 1 per day chinook limit or a 1 per day hatchery chinook limit, is certainly sustainable, extremely conservative and acceptable from a scientific fisheries management viewpoint. We want DFO to take real and meaningful action on a recovery plan for early Fraser chinook that includes chinook predator control, habitat rehabilitation, key hatchery enhancement and adequate funding of fisheries officers and habitat staff. Currently there is no plan with funding in place for these crucial actions to take place and that needs to change now! We are requesting a retention fishery of 1 Chinook per day for all South Coast Areas currently without Chinook retention opportunities due to the 2019 Fraser River Chinook Conservation Measures. We support hatchery only retention where science shows elevated interception of threatened Fraser River Chinook Stocks.

Winter Chinook fishing is in full swing. Been getting some nice fish and lots of beautiful spot prawns and crabs. We are running a winter special till the end of March. $750/day for the boat for a full day on the water. Call or message today to secure your spot. www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca #salmon #fishing #vancouver #charter

From all of us at Salmon Fishing Vancouver, we wish you a Happy New Year!! www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca

From September 18. The sockeye were everywhere. Love the sockeye school chaos. www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca #salmon #fishing #sockeye #vancouver #charter

In a word amazing. So many fish out right now. Limited out the boat by 12:30. Ended it off with landing 3 of 4 on our third quadruple header for the day.

Great day out today with great people. Landed close to 30 salmon with 7 hatchery coho to bring home with us. Many more hooked and lost like this one in the video. Got to love it when there is action all day. www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca #salmon #fishing #vancouver #charter #coho #chinook

Like fishing on a lake today. Had to hunt around for them but managed to put 3 in the box. www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca #salmon #fishing #vancouver

Couple pounds of salmon on the deck here. Get em while the getting is good. Send us a message to book your Vancouver salmon fishing adventure. www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca #salmon #fishing #charters #vancouver

And the amazing fishing continues. Hooked over 20 fish today and put a limit of 10 in the box. Now is the time to get out there. Don’t miss out, give us a call or email to book your fishing adventure. www.salmonfishingvancouver.ca #salmon #fishing #vancouver.