There’s lot at stake for the future of sport fishing in British Columbia in the 2019 election. While you may have already decided on how you would answer the following questions, do you know where the political parties and your local candidates stand on these issues?
These are the most important questions to ask yourself and party candidates.
We are asking people with a vested interest in the BC Coastal fishery to answer this short five-question survey. Most important, bring these questions to your candidates to find out where they stand on these issues. (PDF download here)
While all our readers are encouraged to comment at the end of the article (no profanity please), we would especially like to see candidates respond with comments as well.
[yop_poll id=”1″]
Sadly I think we should have a system where you have 2 fish/day regardless of size/clipped or other and then stop fishing for that day. A fish that has been caught and then released has such a high mortality rate… that it is better to keep it, then once the # fish/day is hit, get off the water.
We need everyone to tighten their belts and we need to take the commercial fishboats and sell them in auctions and retire the fleet as tourism is a money maker and commercial fishing is a very tiny industry that has no financial gains worth mentioning… and we need to quit fishing the herring commercially so a few seine boat owners can get rich. The seiners are killing off the steelhead and all the fish we as recreational fisherman are required to throw back… Let Pattison make his money with car lots and grocery stores and let this fishery thrive… before it is too late.
For round tables- it depends on how many different user groups are at the table and how many votes. If the recreational sector only gets one representative and one vote, they will continually be outvoted by the different sectors of the commercial sector(seiner, gillnet and troll) plus the number of First Nations that invited to the round table.
An argument may be made for the recreational sector to have representatives for drift, fly and troll fisherman. This would increase our voting.
What part of “STOP the commercial slaughter of HERRING and the indiscriminate “seine” fishing in the Frazier River. Why would we implement any kind of “restrictive” fishing when Sea Lions and Seals are left to propagate, hence feed on Salmon as a result of lack of herring, and then after “saving” the Salmon throughout B . C. (Catch and release only) we allow them to be slaughtered in their way up river??
I’m in wilkinsens voting area and I’m voting to vote him out not voting conservitive so i have ndp or green I think in my area ndp has a chance
So does any one know the campaigners platforms ? What is this telling us , we all agree on the same points so who do we vote for
You need to ask your local candidates these questions before you vote.
Seals and sea lions are complicated. Their main diet is hake. Hake decimate young salmon. When seals get into a river ststem they are problematic. If organizations want to “relocate” them go at it with their money. Gods luck with that. Herons are a major predator https://www.google.ca/amp/s/vancouversun.com/news/local-news/hungry-great-blue-herons-in-stanley-park-eating-young-salmon/amp The cap is a fairly big river.
It’s hard to argue many things in posts. We are part of the problem. Sockeye were in good numbers until we started the Fraser river flossing fiasco. I was just as bad As anybody. One year I fished 31 days in a row taking all the fish my boat could legally take. In the 90’s it was good year vs great year. We destroyed that fishery. That was aboriginal and sport fishermen’s greed at its prime! We have to stop justifying a day on the water means we have to kill fish. And we have to promote the non sale of aboriginal fish if it’s not part of their licence. Food fishery is for food. “10$ a fish or in a ditch” is brutal. There are so many people to blame. Herring fishery. Barbaric fishing for roe is so brutal. 10% of 50%. Should be outlawed. Ok rant is going on and on lol
One of the most points was not brought up here, and that’s in regards to what the our Salmon eat.
We need to start conserving the amount of Pacific Herring that are commercially harvested. Big difference in what was then and what is now.
Stop taking the food away from the very fish you’re trying to save!
Check out Conservative MP Blaine Calkins. He is the fisheries critic and really seems to understand what’s going on out here on the West coast. He knows the fisheries issues, has a science background and loves to fish for salmon. He is the polar opposite of Wilkinson.
Tom, comment re hake has been debunked already and accepted by DFO – the calculations of smolt consumption was over estimated by like a factor of 10 and it is now believed they have little to no effect on smolt population. Also, as it is, try finding any study showing hake consuming young salmon. Barely a mention in studies you can found with krill and anchovy being main diet.
If you haven’t seen this I suggest viewing Wild First’s “Candidate Pledge” for removing open net pen Salmon farming from our marine waters.
https://www.wildfirst.ca/pledge-tracker/
So far not one Conservative candidate has supported this!
The sooner Wilkinson is no longer Fisheries Minister the better.
Get him outta there.