April could use a bit of humility when communicating with goverment officials. I doubt, after reading the 1st paragraph, her letter gets any further than the round file. My 2 cents.

 

If they get hung up on her bio-content they were never going to help anyway.

 

Then what is the purpose of the original post? I will help but it surely isn't because of April's bio-content and in fact I almost round filed the post because of it. I did manage to get past her ego and see the true reason to help.

There is a way to deal with goverment officials and elicit thier support. Hyping ones own accomplishments is not it.

 

Hey Kerry, I'm not trying to get in a pissing match about how to write letters to government officials. If you were put off by her writing style of course this is a public forum and you've stated your position.

Personally, like many other board members I know who April is as she has made many local appearances- spoken at Evergreen Fly club, tied flies at Avid Angler etc... she is fairly well known in the steelhead community.

The purpose of her introduction was not to increase her speaking fees, it was merely to point out she has skin in the game. She operates a business on the Dean. She does appear on TV. She promotes the BC fishing industry and tells people directly to go fish there. Her personal intro was two sentences and set up the fact she has history on the river and might know a thing or two about the fishing there.

The Dean river is a bucket list experience for many steelheaders. I'm upset people paid thousands of dollars to have a once in a lifetime experience and found a bunch of gill nets they weren't expecting impacting their fishing.

I don't want to speak for you but I bet we both are disappointed wild steelhead end up in gill nets. The letter above is proposing a compromise to government officials and I certainly learned something from the original post.

 

No pissing match. I know of her and anyone in the northwest that fishes likely does also. I think she could do well rallying people for the cause and truly hope she does. I just don't think her letter to the minister written in that fashion will do any good. As I said before, my 2 cents.

 

... I think she could do well rallying people for the cause and truly hope she does. I just don't think her letter to the minister written in that fashion will do any good. As I said before, my 2 cents.

I`m in full agreement with Kerry .

 

The issue of BC commercial fishing $$$ and Steelhead bycatch are older than April's guiding career. Similar issues have impacted other Steelhead rivers/runs in BC before (Thompson River and the Sockeye gillnetting come to mind).

It would probably be worth surfing the BC Steelhead Society's webpage for a less personal perspective on this issue.

Just a few .02 thoughts as I sit here waiting for my training class to resume.

 

Speaking of the Steelhead Society of BC, we have sent in 4 letters to the various officials regarding this issue. We havent got things up on the website yet, simply because our web techie is away hiking. Look us up on Facebook and there is some commentary. Also a contact list and letter template for anyone to use if they care enough about Dean river steelhead to send in a letter of their own, which I would really encourage. https://www.facebook.com/groups/47570728000/

Letters from non- Canadians are pretty valuable in these sort of scenarios.....Thanks.

 

Ralfish,

Why would a letter from a non-Canadian carry any weight at all?

Seriously, DFO exists for no other purpose than to manage commercial fishing. Killing fish, salmon and other marine species, is what they are about. Steelhead a a nuisance fish species to them that causes reactionary sport fishermen to send nasty letters requiring DFOers to need a stiff drink at the end of their day's work. DFO has been promising to reduce commercial fishing impacts on steelhead to to improve steelhead conservation for well over 30 years. But the way their legislative mandate is set up, institutionally they just don't care. Reducing steelhead harm and bycatch is not on their annual personnel rating forms. They are far more likely to be graded harshly on performance if some salmon run escapes "too" many fish to the spawning grounds that could have and should have been killed in commercial fisheries.

I think the letters just make for lunch break amusement for DFO before tossing them in the recycle bin. There is no "win" for DFO if steelhead are conserved. Sorry, but the only way to conserve BC steelhead is for Canadians to change DFO's legislative mandate. We have similar issues with sport and commercial allocation in WA and OR. Only a change in the law will change the way things are done on the water.

Sg

 

Ralfish,

Why would a letter from a non-Canadian carry any weight at all?

Seriously, DFO exists for no other purpose than to manage commercial fishing. Killing fish, salmon and other marine species, is what they are about. Steelhead a a nuisance fish species to them that causes reactionary sport fishermen to send nasty letters requiring DFOers to need a stiff drink at the end of their day's work. DFO has been promising to reduce commercial fishing impacts on steelhead to to improve steelhead conservation for well over 30 years. But the way their legislative mandate is set up, institutionally they just don't care. Reducing steelhead harm and bycatch is not on their annual personnel rating forms. They are far more likely to be graded harshly on performance if some salmon run escapes "too" many fish to the spawning grounds that could have and should have been killed in commercial fisheries.

I think the letters just make for lunch break amusement for DFO before tossing them in the recycle bin. There is no "win" for DFO if steelhead are conserved. Sorry, but the only way to conserve BC steelhead is for Canadians to change DFO's legislative mandate. We have similar issues with sport and commercial allocation in WA and OR. Only a change in the law will change the way things are done on the water.

Sg

Tourism is big business in BC. Comments from locals who are upset about reduced fishing opportunites carry less weight than from people who will spend $$$ to visit BC in search of fish. The Dean is a special case since pretty much everyone has to spend money to fish it, but I agree with the original point.

 

one bad letter is better than zero perfectly written letters.

 

Well...I know what I would do...

 

I've met April at the Speyclave in Sandy several years ago, and yes, she does come across in public like a self-impressed "cutie". In person, she's a totally different person; very nice, sincere, and certainly not your classic "valley girl". I see the letter as definitely "skin in the game", both from the perspective of someone who's income depends on the resource, and someone who knows what she's talking about. The fisheries guy, on the other hand, is probably a political appointee who may or may not know his butt from a hot rock (our Canadian brethren, please correct me if this is incorrect?).

 

Typhoon,

DFO is federal and just shy of impervious to Provincial concerns about steelhead conservation, which are defined as a freshwater rather than marine species in Canada. If DFO gave a rat's ass about steelhead, they have had over three decades to demonstrate their conservation concern. What they have demonstrated is their dedication to harvesting every last salmon they can define as harvestable surplus, even when it means wiping out co-mingled weaker salmon stocks, which they have done quite well. Sound familiar? WA and OR salmon fisheries have done roughly the same.

Sg

 

Typhoon,

DFO is federal and just shy of impervious to Provincial concerns about steelhead conservation, which are defined as a freshwater rather than marine species in Canada. If DFO gave a rat's ass about steelhead, they have had over three decades to demonstrate their conservation concern. What they have demonstrated is their dedication to harvesting every last salmon they can define as harvestable surplus, even when it means wiping out co-mingled weaker salmon stocks, which they have done quite well. Sound familiar? WA and OR salmon fisheries have done roughly the same.

Sg

Same situation in the PNW of the US. It's not, and has never been, about rebuilding wild salmon and steelhead runs. It's about satisfying all interested groups, including & mostly commercial interests. None of the managers are interested in letting anadromous fish do what they come to freshwater to do. We can subsidize commercial fishing (gillnetting) with hatcheries or let the fish re-populate themselves. Which option trips your trigger? It's time for heavy political pressure in the PNW of both Canada and the USA.

 

Our fellow Canadian steelheaders need to go all out and become - ECO Terrorists - Whale Wars style. Go get yourself 2-4 Hay bales ...dump the bales into the water just upstream of the nets (just after they are set and out of sight)

 

Our fellow Canadian steelheaders need to go all out and become - ECO Terrorists - Whale Wars style. Go get yourself 2-4 Hay bales ...dump the bales into the water just upstream of the nets (just after they are set and out of sight)

If you are going to do this, do it right. The correct way to use hay bales is to wrap them in barbed wire until they are neutral buoyant. This way they will drift just below the surface keeping them out of sight. Also when they float into the net they will start to tumble and the barbed wire will gather the webbing and get tangled in it. With the newer mono nets the bales will have to be cut out of the nets causing the most damage. The net will then need to be repaired taking up a lot of the fisherman's time that he could have spent fishing the net

 

Salmo: Believe it or not we have been able to change commercial openings and also get gear improvements (Vis "weedlines") at the cost of the commercials to the sole benefit of mykiss. Being jaded is a natural outcome of beating your head into a brick wall year after year, but unfortunatley doesn't accomplish anything useful. Don't ask how I know this. DFO is hamstrung by politicians plain and simple. Letters from non- Canadians carries weight as it brings home the true $ value of steelhead. Especially considering we don't kill them in BC for trophies etc. Politicians listen to $ and votes its really that simple. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the Dean steelhead sport fishery is more valuable than the Dean channel chum salmon fishery. Considering its 85% (or close) foreigners (non-Canadians) fishing the Dean, those letters are important.

 

I have mixed feelings about this and other classified BC waters. I have no problem paying extra to fish specially managed, classified waters. Where I get lost is if I am forced to pay for special waters, I want it to be specially managed and the target species should be given extra protection, priority, management, enforcement or whatever. However, when the government sells out, sacrifices, and ignores species within classified water status in favor of commercial harvest, I have a hard time shelling out extra coin for classified waters that only get normal, regular management status, e.g., Thompson. The Dean certainly is on my bucket list. However, if the Canadian government expects me to go through a lottery system and pay Class I fees, it better do a better job managing the Dean than it has the Thompson before it gets my money.

 

This same issue (commercial bycatch impact) is an issue every year on the Dean and has been for some time (at least since 1999). I send a letter every year.

Agree that current management is aimed at a very different result than any of us would like to see.

 

The significant difference this year is the near total collapse of the Skeena sockeye fishery. With extreme conservation measures now in effect , meaning even FN food and ceremonial fisheries aren't taking place on the Skeena. So the North Coast commercials have moved down the coast to the Dean channel etc to par take in the low $ value chum and pink fisheries. 130 boats now out there and the last time I looked it was over 2 dozen openings. In the past when "weedline" requirements were in place it simply meant no one fished as the commercials did't drop the money on two sets of nets. Now the North Coast fleet is concentrating on the areas in Area 8 that dont have the weed-line requirement, and the Dean and Kimsquit steelhead are getting hammered. Badly...again.

 

The significant difference this year is the near total collapse of the Skeena sockeye fishery. With extreme conservation measures now in effect , meaning even FN food and ceremonial fisheries aren't taking place on the Skeena. So the North Coast commercials have moved down the coast to the Dean channel etc to par take in the low $ value chum and pink fisheries. 130 boats now out there and the last time I looked it was over 2 dozen openings. In the past when "weedline" requirements were in place it simply meant no one fished as the commercials did't drop the money on two sets of nets. Now the North Coast fleet is concentrating on the areas in Area 8 that dont have the weed-line requirement, and the Dean and Kimsquit steelhead are getting hammered. Badly...again.

When I gillneted in S.E. alaska . we all fished with a weed line and very seldon caught a steelhead. Every steelhead I ever caught in P.S in a gillnet was in the top 5 meshes no matter how deep of water I was fishing, Even then we rarely caught them because our season was generaly over by the end of october before the steelhead run entered the sound & most early steelhead are hatchery fish & will pass right thru a 6 inch mesh net.

 

thanks for the add'l intel.
this world is getting so f*cked.

 

Way back in the 80's a neighbor gave us a couple by-catch steelhead. 42 and 44" long. Not the big shouldered bruisers you'd catch in the spring PS rivers. Long and lean with enormous square tails.

 

Both are Dean fish, both have scars from net encounters..

 

As a seiner in SE AK during the 90s, we caught steelhead quite regularly. There was no market for them so most of the time they became take-home fish. We fished inside waters and did not intercept as many as those fishing outside; I heard stories that they caught a lot more. I imagine many of them were heading south to BC waters. Many of the purse-seined fish could be returned to the water unharmed, if such emphasis would be made by the AK and BC fish managers. Just like fly anglers, there are good, responsible, ethical commercial guys out that would do the right thing if taught.

 

Headed up next week to try and collect some on site data. Will report back at the end of the month.

Sg

 

Have fun up there SG

 

Too much office work and too little field "work" makes Sg a dull boy. About done with that nonsense.

Sg

 

Don't have your expectations too high, back to numbers of pre 2008....

 

Ral, is that because of lower adult returns due to productivity/survival or higher harvest rates, both, or too early to tell?