Chinook King Salmon Fishing Season Cancelled

[Montanan]

Chinook, a.k.a. King, salmon stocks along the West Coast are so low fishery managers have officially canceled both the commercial and most of the recreational fishing season from northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/regulators-rare-step-canceling-next-024410322.html


Disappearance of Salmon is joining the disappearance of crabs and the cancellation of catching.

Sad and disconcerting situation.

I can recall when there was an abundance of both, no longer.

[JPA Cate]

Pismo clams extinct now, due to overfishing. Maybe the population can recover if we give them a break. Kinda hard on the fishermen, though. No one wants their rice bowl broken.

Ann

[Orin]

This has a lot to do with drought.
That said my grandpa would tell me stories of filling the laundry basket with fish in a day and freezing it for the year on the west coast when he was young.
The thoughtless overconsumption and greed wiped most of that away before I was even born. Now we have to do without.

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Pismo clams extinct now, due to overfishing. Maybe the population can recover if we give them a break. Kinda hard on the fishermen, though. No one wants their rice bowl broken.

Ann

I graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1979 and we would occasionally go clamming at Pismo Beach. The clams had to be of 4.5 inches or larger and those were not abundant, but it didn't take too long to gather a meal. I believe the clam population dropped off a lot in the early 80's, reasons not fully known, some blame the return of the otter population and yeah, I recall seeing otters floating on the backs and placing a flat rock on the tummies and pounding clams to break them open. But there was considerable human pressure, Pismo was long known as the clam capital of the world. Loved spending time on the central coast beaches, including Avila and the clothes optional Pirate's Cove.

[JPA Cate]

Otters can overfish, too!

[Lepke]

Many salmon that hatch never get to the ocean and of those many are caught in the western Pacific. Also their food sources are being overfished.

My home dock is on the Columbia River. At times there are thousands of sea lions living on the river feeding on salmon and many thousands of birds feeding on fingerlings. Enough salmon need to be hatched to cover the needs of the increases in birds, sea lions and whales. Herring and other small fish need to be allowed to increase their numbers. Herring and sardines were closed to fishing for decades and then reopened before their numbers had recovered sufficiently. Sardines numbers have crashed again.

I was a salmon and tuna fisherman in the 70s. You could see the signs of reduced populations then and it's much worse now.

Something needs to curb the massive Chinese fishing fleets.

[PJS]

It has more to do evasive species and the side affects of the actions of that evasive species; MANKIND

[psk125]

Originally Posted by PJS

It has more to do evasive species and the side affects of the actions of that evasive species; MANKIND

Is that like the one that got away?

[paralog]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Chinook, a.k.a. King, salmon stocks along the West Coast are so low fishery managers have officially canceled both the commercial and most of the recreational fishing season from northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/regulators-rare-step-canceling-next-024410322.html


Disappearance of Salmon is joining the disappearance of crabs and the cancellation of catching.

Sad and disconcerting situation.

I can recall when there was an abundance of both, no longer.

And folks will keep on fishing commercially and recreationally and won't stop until the last one is gone. Then they will all be saying, why is there notsalmon. The amount that DFO here in Canada spends on "enhancement" each year would fund a small African country for a year, but do they stop the fishing, no. It continues year after year and they wonder why there is not salmon.
DFO has to be one of the worlds worst government agencies, if they told me it was snowing outside i would go outside to check. There seems to be no common sense in the agency.

[Bowdrie]

If the Asian countries were allowed to "fish" for Sealions there would be lots of Salmon.
The protection of those "poor little smiling mammals with their big doe eyes", and the resultant exponential explosion of their numbers, have caused more devastation of the salmon stocks than can hardly be imagined.
The ruined marinas/docks and loss of marine/marina business on the West Coast is but the visual tip of the iceberg.

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by Bowdrie

If the Asian countries were allowed to "fish" for Sealions there would be lots of Salmon.
The protection of those "poor little smiling mammals with their big doe eyes", and the resultant exponential explosion of their numbers, have caused more devastation of the salmon stocks than can hardly be imagined.
The ruined marinas/docks and loss of marine/marina business on the West Coast is but the visual tip of the iceberg.

Please show the (scientific) research proving this.

[fstbttms]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

Please show the (scientific) research proving this.

Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

Please show the (scientific) research proving this.

I can't provide "scientific" data on it.
Some decades of living on the water and talking to both recreational and commercial fishermen; asking them about "sealions vs. salmon".
The answers they give are not what the official narrative is.
The laws/regulations/limits on salmon are, and have been, for many years continually being tightened-up, but the numbers still go down.
When fishermen are allowed fewer and fewer, but the numbers of fish continue to decline it's not the fault of over-fishing, (I can't speak to issues with foreign fishing vessels).
The fish are not returning to fresh water, they're being killed before they get to the spawning grounds.
The sealions are vicious predators of salmon.
They like the "caviar", they take one bite out of the belly of a salmon and move to the next.

Originally Posted by fstbttms

Don't hold your breath waiting for an answer

Unlike some, I have a life outside of a boat forum.

[HeywoodJ]

Originally Posted by Bowdrie

...Some decades of living on the water and talking to both recreational and commercial fishermen; asking them about "sealions vs. salmon"....

If you've walked the docks anywhere in SE Alaska in the last decade when the crabbers are out, commercial or recreational, they will tell you, over and over, that sea otter resurgence has decimated Dungeness crab fisheries in SE Alaska. Just as your sealion example the fisherfolk narrative is that otters are vicious crab eaters and have killed the industry. And then along comes the 2020-2021 crabbing season, reports that otters have greatly extended their range and population that year, and the commercial catch of Dungeness crab in SE Alaska was the second greatest ever recorded, surpassing everything in the past 20 years.

The colloquial 'knowledge' of cause-effect isn't always supported by the facts.

[Cheechako]

Good. The King population is devastated. One problem is that Springs are much hardier than Summer Kings. Unfortunately the two have hybridized into a third run that tries to head upstream at the lowest summer water levels and cant make it up. Add to that the climate change and it's a huge problem.

Spring runs in wilderness flows with no dams are still decent, but there aren't many.
They need to shut the King runs down for years really. More dams are scheduled to be removed.

In the 70's ALaska shut down the fishery for years and started buying fisherman's boats and licenses literally saving the Alaska fishery. It was not popular, but a gutsy good move.