Alaska harvests BC salmon while BC fishers tied to dock

[SteveK]

There is now a study concluded which has proven that ASD is intercepting BC salmon in Alaska every year!


Alaska harvests BC salmon while BC fishers tied to dock

 

[AKDoug]

The feeder kings we catch up here are frequently from Canada, they are around all year feeding and growing before heading back to spawn. Fish go where the food is, and the food is here. On the other hand, Alaskan salmon are harvested in many other places between going to sea and returning to spawn including the high seas fisheries.

It's just the way it is! The only way to prevent it would be to harvest them only in the streams as they headed up to die and the quality of the fish would be less...

I am just a sport fisher, never done commercial. The problem with fishing is that we simply keep getting better at catching them, and more people are doing it all the time.

 

[Bacchus]

Just curious how you can tell a BC salmon from a AK one? no passport to check
If you consider where they spent most of their life, ate the bait fish to grow up big and strong, maybe they have earned AK residency... just going to BC to spawn?
Always different sides to a story... Just another way to look at it???

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

LOL!! Funny.

Washington/Oregon claim the same thing, except they clip their hatchery fish.

We are having a good king salmon tonight for dinner. Caught in Chatham Strait. Come to think about it, it had a Canadian Flag on its tail, so thanks for dinner.....

 

[AKDoug]

DNA, the biologists take samples from the stocks to see where they come from. Salmon are also notorious for going where they aren't supposed to, which restocks streams that lose their natural returns.

 

[SteveK]

Just curious how you can tell a BC salmon from a AK one? no passport to check
If you consider where they spent most of their life, ate the bait fish to grow up big and strong, maybe they have earned AK residency... just going to BC to spawn?
Always different sides to a story... Just another way to look at it???

Our salmon say they are sorry

 

[SteveK]

LOL!! Funny.

Washington/Oregon claim the same thing, except they clip their hatchery fish.

We are having a good king salmon tonight for dinner. Caught in Chatham Strait. Come to think about it, it had a Canadian Flag on its tail, so thanks for dinner.....

 

[Bacchus]

DNA, the biologists take samples from the stocks to see where they come from. Salmon are also notorious for going where they aren't supposed to, which restocks streams that lose their natural returns.

Granted DNA might indicate origin but they are now international immigrants to AK, just exploring their roots!
Maybe just impress on them the need to stay close to home... EH!

 

[srhawk454]

Granted DNA might indicate origin but they are now international immigrants to AK, just exploring their roots!
Maybe just impress on them the need to stay close to home... EH!

Viable idea although BC-->AK immigration looks like a major anomaly in salmon behavioral patterns. A couple of thoughts - are they illegal or legal immigrants? If legal, all bets are off... if illegal - implementing 'Stay in Canada' rule sounds like a sound solution. E.g. we know all blue marlins in FL are from Cuba but since Havana does not enforce 'Stay in Cuba' law we just catch them for dinner, I guess AK is doing the same?

 

[Lepke]

Salmon travel all the way to Asia, and most are probably caught there. Only a small percentage returns from the sea.
And their food is an issue. We allow over fishing of herring and other small species, limiting salmon's food source. Years of more herring, more salmon are around. When I was a fisherman, old timers spoke of always seeing at least 3 schools of herring at sea.
When was the last time you saw a herring school?

 

[Bacchus]

Viable idea although BC-->AK immigration looks like a major anomaly in salmon behavioral patterns. A couple of thoughts - are they illegal or legal immigrants? If legal, all bets are off... if illegal - implementing 'Stay in Canada' rule sounds like a sound solution. E.g. we know all blue marlins in FL are from Cuba but since Havana does not enforce 'Stay in Cuba' law we just catch them for dinner, I guess AK is doing the same?

Not sure how to define legal or illegal w salmon but they are certainly "under the radar"!

 

[psneeld]

My understanding of andromodous or pelagic fish is they are only "yours" when in "your" water.

Sure treaties can limit things...but good luck with treaties.....

 

[koliver]

LOL!! Funny.

Washington/Oregon claim the same thing, except they clip their hatchery fish.

We are having a good king salmon tonight for dinner. Caught in Chatham Strait. Come to think about it, it had a Canadian Flag on its tail, so thanks for dinner.....

Our hatchery fish are all clipped too.

I agree that the herring fishery is the most destructive to the bigger fish, and the no of spring Salmon around determines the health of the Orca population.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

A cool story.

We were fishing in Kutze Inlet. Fish were jumping everywhere and heading to the river at the end of the inlet.

The rules stated if you catch a king with a clipped fin, that meant it had a chip in its head. Freeze the head and drop it off at a fish and game freezer at a marina with the paperwork. Info such as when, where it was caught.

A few months later I get a call from a biologist. He wanted to verify the info.

It seems this fish was from Desolation Sound. Kutze was way north.

 

[tpbrady]

Lepke

Last May a lot of Stephens Passage was a big collection of herring schools with humpbacks everywhere. We saw herring schools all summer and silver fishing was good in August.

Tom

 

[Lepke]

Lepke

Last May a lot of Stephens Passage was a big collection of herring schools with humpbacks everywhere. We saw herring schools all summer and silver fishing was good in August.

Tom

That's good news.
Off the OR and WA coast, I haven't seen a school in 10 years. And I look.

When I was young, they were catching herring for fertilizer. Yet the herring from seiners went to roe processors that only took the eggs and the fish bodies went to a land fill.
If we want salmon for orcas, salmon need something to eat. And the recovering humpbacks need tons more.
Sorry about standing on the soap box. It's a big deal to me.

 

[Nomad Willy]

I remember that .. herring for fertilizer

 

[SteveK]

I used to jig in/around herring balls. have only seen a few small ones in the past few years, so they are making a return.

ETA: In the 80's buyers with suitcases full of cash were buying as much as the fish boat could supply. Wonder if they were overfished?

 

[Northern Spy]

Salmon travel all the way to Asia, and most are probably caught there. Only a small percentage returns from the sea.
And their food is an issue. We allow over fishing of herring and other small species, limiting salmon's food source. Years of more herring, more salmon are around. When I was a fisherman, old timers spoke of always seeing at least 3 schools of herring at sea.
When was the last time you saw a herring school?

You mean a ball of herring on the sounder? See them often. And the coast is full of milky herring spawn in the spring too.

Most people say fishing in The Strait of Georgia is the best it's been in years. The last few years is certainly the best since I've lived here for 21 years now.

But yet Ottawa says it's bad. No fish at all. Go figure.

 

[Lepke]

You mean a ball of herring on the sounder? .

No, not electronic, eyeball, I mean seeing herring in a bait ball on the surface. A big disturbed area, maybe with jumpers if salmon were feeding. It use to be a common sight. When I fished 40+ years ago, I could look out across the sea, anytime, and see a herring ball. Old timers told me, in their early days, could always see 3 or more. Their view, at the time, was the ocean is dying.
Now it's worse.

 

[SteveK]

No, not electronic, eyeball, I mean seeing herring in a bait ball on the surface. A big disturbed area, maybe with jumpers if salmon were feeding. It use to be a common sight. When I fished 40+ years ago, I could look out across the sea, anytime, and see a herring ball. Old timers told me, in their early days, could always see 3 or more. Their view, at the time, was the ocean is dying.
Now it's worse.

And the seagulls can be seen miles away over the ball of herring in a feeding frenzy. Seldom seen now and then for shorter duration

 

[moparharn]

I warned you that there would be repercussions if Don Cherry was not put back on Hockey Night in Canada. You did not do it and now you have to live with the consequences. You failed to make the connection using the very same logic that we Americans have been running our country with for the last 6 or so years. Better smarten up. Like us. Bill

 

[SteveK]

Bill that is an astute observation.

 

[Bob Nala]

It's hard to tell the difference between an American and a Canadian salmon in the water. Even more so if it's wild or hatchery. But if it is clipped and analyzed it's easy. Even wild wild salmon have DNA markers that can be tested to determine river of origin. But to commercially target a run that originates in another country opens up a big Pandoras Box. I would hope that these are just incidentals and bycatch.

As for the herring, commercial boats on the west coast of Vancouver Island have not been allowed to fish for years. And recently the east coast fleet has had their quota cut in half. Other commercial closures up the inside have been the result of native pressure. The numbers here are coming back up. I have seen balls of herring bigger than ever before. Here in Parksville There is a large herring span right on the beach every year.

Fish will go where the food is and Alaska I guess has a lot. Hopefully as the food returns here the fish will spend more time in local waters and not have to travel so far.

 

[AKDoug]

The stock mix in schools as well, everything eats where there is food. It's pretty hard to separate the fish along the coastal corridors the fish travel and feed in by where they came from. Where I live in Alaska the Kodiak fishers were intercepting the fish returning to Cook Inlet, it made them furious! Of course regulations resulted limiting fishing in corridors the Cook Inlet fish returned in to placate the Cook Inlet fishers.

Currently we are experiencing regulations to limit the sport take of feeder Kings, we are simply getting too good at catching them all year around. Which of course affects the return for spawning and the commercial folks wherever they intercept them on their way back to the source streams.

My understanding on herring is that the value is in the roe, not the meat of the fish, so they let them sit for a while to loosen the roe before squeezing it out to sell. The meat of the fish is greatly degraded by sitting while the roe loosens, and isn't good for anything but fish meal and fertilizer by the time they finish harvesting the roe.

30 years ago here when I would go out on Fire Department calls, it was common to have buckets of pickling herring sitting out on peoples' porches in the spring. They would take a net down to the beach and catch whatever personal use herring they wanted, you don't see that anymore. People don't put up food the way they used to...

 

[Oeanda]

Most of our spring (king) salmon here, north coast BC, now come from American hatcheries. We’ve all but shut down our own hatchery program. Why that is- nobody seems to know. DFO is deaf as well as blind, aka head up a$$ syndrome.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

Most of our spring (king) salmon here, north coast BC, now come from American hatcheries. We’ve all but shut down our own hatchery program. Why that is- nobody seems to know. DFO is deaf as well as blind, aka head up a$$ syndrome.

The government has also shut down many hatcheries in Washington and Oregon. Alaska seems to have it right.

 

[AKDoug]

Our hatcheries are largely run by commercial fishing, and they don't do Kings since there is conflict anyway over allocation with sports fishermen. Pinks and reds are the money fish and the red fishery here is dip netting in one of two local rivers. It really upsets the commercial guys that their enhancement $$ for the hatcheries pay for reds for the subsistence people...

The state has a couple of hatcheries, but they are also centered on subsistence salmon and sport trout for lakes and streams with public access. Our fish aren't marked as wild stocks and hatchery fish co mingle in the ocean before returning.

 

[SteveK]

Alaska banned fish farms in 1990.
Could that be a reason wild salmon flourish there and not to the south?

 

[Ksyniuk]

Does everyone here think this is a joke? Its the salmon that need to get to these incredible BC Rivers in order to spawn. If you don't let them spawn, there will be no bragging stories about having King Salmon tonight.(regardless if you are in Washington, BC or Alaska)