fishing for Atlantic salmon

[starcrafttom]

These fish are great. fun to catch and really put up a great fight. I was surprised at the size of some of them. We saw fish in the 20 # class caught. Its a lite bite but once hooked they take off and run deep like a king at first. Then they come to the surface and jump like a silver. Just great fish. We need this every year.

We ended up with 7 and lost 4 because our gear was to lite. Going Monday again.

 

[chipwagon]

Sounds fun, and it's a public service to catch them. The ideal fishing opportunity. Are any of these fish wandering near the Canadian border? I'm taking the boat to Sidney next weekend and wouldn't be against trying BBQ Atlantic salmon.

 

[drbridge]

Reports say they have been catching them off the beach at Port Townsend and in Sekiu/Clallam Bay and Neah Bay as well as some of the rivers. They are moving fast and in all directions, so they are probably heading to Canadian waters too. I was marking a lot of fish on my sonar while tending our crab pots at the entrance to Sequim Bay. According to Washington fish and wildlife you can only fish for them in areas that are currently open to Pacific Salmon. area 6 is closed so We did not fish. That's OK though as our freezer is currently plugged with Kings and Crab.

 

[Saxe Point]

I've seen a lot of Facebook posts and pictures showing them being caught off the east and west coasts of Vancouver Island. It's almost a third of a million fish, so lots to go around.

 

[starcrafttom]

The real number of fish released is closer to 10,ooo maybe 20,000. The 300,000 number was the total fish in the ALL the pens. the floats are divided up into a lot of pens. Again the press never gets it right. We are headed out again now.

 

[rogerbum]

The real number of fish released is closer to 10,ooo maybe 20,000. The 300,000 number was the total fish in the ALL the pens. the floats are divided up into a lot of pens. Again the press never gets it right. We are headed out again now.

The Lummi natives have caught about 20,000 all by themselves. At present, the estimates of the number released ranges as high as 185,700 and as low as 4,000 (which is clearly too low given the numbers caught already). See - http://www.dnr.wa.gov/atlanticsalmon

 

[Dreamer]

Saw you on TV Tom! Fill that freezer.

 

[starcrafttom]

I did not get to see me as I dont watch broadcast tv. I will have to find the clip somewhere. We got 8 more last night but had to work for them. They have stopped biting and there is no food in their stomachs. I think they will all be dead soon.

 

[chromer]

I found the KOMO video .


http://komonews.com/news/local/cleanup- ... med-salmon

The DNR girl was titled Tom Elliott :lol:

 

[chipwagon]

I noticed a map in the video, found it at http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/salmon/atlan ... ch_map.php . Should be helpful for anybody looking to pitch in and catch a few. It doesn't look like they are going west in Canadian waters, but that might also be due to closed portions of Washington area 7. I'm not aware of any organized tracking efforts on the Canadian side but reports of at least a few showing up http://www.iheartradio.ca/cfax-1070/new ... -1.3199065

 

[hardee]

Hey Tom, You looked great.

I went to a meeting tonight about fish farm / open water fish pens put on by a coordinated effort of three organizations: Puget SoundKeeper’s, Washington Wild Fish Conservancy, and Sierra Club. It was very enlightening.

The main speakers were Chris Wilke, from Puget Soundkeepers who gave a family album of the PNW salmon, which for me was very enlightening since I am not a fisherman. He talked about the general 5 species, and then the additional 3, Char, Steelhead and Rainbow (I think was the other one). The last three are related, but depend on whether they go to the salt water or not as to what they are.

The second main speaker was, Kurt Beardslee, Director of Wild Fish Conservancy. He is a Researcher and Director with 28 years of research in Puget Sound and on salmon environments in the PNW, with 5 years associated with Alexandra Morton working in BC waters. He was the first scientist, and first boat at the Cypress Island pens after the pen collapse. He was also the scientist that warned the DFW about a pending IHN virus outbreak in the fish pens at the South end of Bainbridge Island about 10 years ago.

He has been collecting samples of the escaped Atlantic Salmon for dissection and testing for disease and anomalies. He reported disfigured fish, internal tumor like growths, fatty hearts, and soft (easily torn) flesh, and empty stomachs. One of the tests they are doing is for viruses and there are no results for those tests back yet. His comment, “Not something I would eat.”

For anyone interested, there is going to be a flotilla meeting on the water at the south end of Bainbridge Island, on Sept 16, between 2 to 4 PM, (bring your vessel – kayak to research ship) and Alexandra Morton will be in attendance on a 70 foot research vessel. The purpose of the flotilla is to draw attention to the fish pen farms there, to deliver the signed petitions (See this site:

https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/#take-action

) to the Washington State Governor at his home on Bainbridge Island, and to attract media attention to the fact that the Governor supports the fish pens being in the water of Washington State, The only state on the West coast that has allowed open water fish farm pens in out waters.

I’m not a fisherman but I am a promoter for wildlife, clean water, and sound ecological practices, (and I like using my boat for "community service" projects) And, there is always time to learn.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon

 

[hardee]

You can sign an electronic petition to Washington State's governor to stop open pen fish farming in WA State waters here:

https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/#home



The Wild Fish Conservancy can be found here:

http://wildfishconservancy.org/

Recommendations for net pen fish farms are here:

http://wildfishconservancy.org/atlantic ... s-comments

For those who are interested.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[starcrafttom]

Washington Wild Fish Conservancy- this is anti fishing group and I do not believe anything they have to say. I ate these fish last night taste great. I have cleaned over 15 of them and have not seen anything of concern. Sorry but the new pen location is great. Most of the problems associated with net pens ( real ones not the made up WWFC bs) are due to low tidal flow. Having a pen in open water is the answer. Removes waste and unused feed. I mean if it works for the city of Victoria it will work for a few fish.

 

[hardee]

Dilution to pollution is the solution

Not.


I am not a fisherman, nor am I anti fishing. I am anti fish pen farming.

If you want to be able to keep fishing in Puget Sound / Salish Sea, you need to keep the fish pens out because they concentrate disease (salmon lice and viruses) in the pens and yes, the tidal currents will flush that, plus the pens allow fry to pass through, contract the lice or other diseases and then carry them out of the pens to the natural habitat, or in the case of the fry, collecting about 6 lice can be fatal to the fry before they grow to return as adult, catchable salmon.

"The article’s authors, including University of Alberta researcher Martin Krkosek and B.C.’s Alexandra Morton, looked at 37 years’ worth of Fisheries and Oceans data for 71 central coast rivers and found that wild pink runs have comfortably withstood decades of commercial fishing — but cannot survive fish farms."

From this site:

http://www.farnorthscience.com/2007/12/ ... ld-salmon/

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[starcrafttom]

if you want to keep fishing in Puget sound then you have to keep the nets out of the river, increase and reform the hatchery's and stop the practice of gill netting all together. Net pens have their problems but they are not the problem only a scape goat.

Also you are protesting the solution to the net pens ( more open water) with bumper sticker quotes from the commercial fleet that put us in this mess to begin with.

In 2009 (the last year for which data is available), Americans consumed a total of 4.833 billion pounds of seafood – or approximately15.8 pounds of fish and shellfishper person – of which roughly 50 percent is wild-caught and 50 percent is farmed, according to NOAA's latest data.

To fill the hole left if we did away with farmed fish we would have to double the amount of fish caught in nets. That would destroy the stocks again, just like the commercials did before.

Most of the salmon caught are the produce of hatchiers. I saw that both times I went to alaska. We are really arguing free range chicken vs caged chicken and nothing more.

 

[hardee]

There is a program on Discovery Channel tonight "Rancher, Farmer and Fisherman" brings additional information about Ecological and Environmental responsibility of resource use. Their fishermen are the commercial fishermen of the Gulf Coast and the fish in question is the Red Snapper but the process is all the same, you have to work with nature not against it or the resource goes away.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[starcrafttom]

Here is a interesting tid bit from a article that should put to rest any propaganda about colonization.

She says 7.5 million Atlantic salmon have been released here since the 1940s, when some people actually thought it would be a good idea to establish populations of them here. None survived. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has assured the state that interbreeding or establishing new populations isn’t an issue. When penned salmon escape,” Bouta says, “they tend to stay near the pen. And they’re good eating.” So fishermen, granted a special season, are quite happy to catch the escapees. Some risks may be exaggerated in popular imagination. .

http://crosscut.com/2016/08/salmon-farming-on-the-rise-in-washington/

 

[hardee]

From one of the links in the posted article, this section about where the Atlantic salmon go, once out of the pens.

“John Volpe, a fisheries ecologist at the University of Alberta, has been swimming rivers with snorkel and mask to document the spread of Atlantic salmon and their offspring.

"In the majority of rivers, I find Atlantic salmon," Volpe said. "We know they are out there; we just don't know how many, or what to do about them."

His research focuses on how Atlantic salmon can colonize, if given a chance. It has terrified the U.S. neighbors to the north. Alaskan officials banned fish farms in 1990 to protect their wild fishery.

The following is from a link in the posted article. It doesn’t seem to “put to rest any propaganda about colonization.”

And from an article in the Seattle Times: “Farmed salmon ‘heading to every river in Puget Sound’”
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... get-sound/



The following is an article from the LA Times, and is linked to in the “Salmon Farming on the Rise in Washington” by Daniel Jack Chasan. This article was posted in the previous thread.

Article: Fish Farms Become Feedlots of the Sea
By: Kenneth R. Weiss
Of: Times Staff Writer from Port McNeill, BC

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-me-sal ... story.html


The following is from a link in the article you posted.

“IF you bought a salmon filet in the supermarket recently or ordered one in a restaurant, chances are it was born in a plastic tray here, or a place just like it.

Instead of streaking through the ocean or leaping up rocky streams, it spent three years like a marine couch potato, circling lazily in pens, fattening up on pellets of salmon chow.

It was vaccinated as a small fry to survive the diseases that race through these oceanic feedlots, acres of net-covered pens tethered offshore. It was likely dosed with antibiotics to ward off infection or fed pesticides to shed a beard of bloodsucking sea lice.

For that rich, pink hue, the fish was given a steady diet of synthetic pigment. Without it, the flesh of these caged salmon would be an unappetizing, pale gray. ….. “

Continuing….

"Industrial fish farming raises many of the same concerns about chemicals and pollutants that are associated with feedlot cattle and factory chicken farms. So far, however, government scientists worry less about the effects of antibiotics, pesticides and artificial dyes on human health than they do about damage to the marine environment.

"They're like floating pig farms," said Daniel Pauly, professor of fisheries at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. "They consume a tremendous amount of highly concentrated protein pellets and they make a terrific mess."

Fish wastes and uneaten feed smother the sea floor beneath these farms, generating bacteria that consume oxygen vital to shellfish and other bottom-dwelling sea creatures."

And further,…

“Disease and parasites, which would normally exist in relatively low levels in fish scattered around the oceans, can run rampant in densely packed fish farms.

"Pesticides fed to the fish and toxic copper sulfate used to keep nets free of algae are building up in sea-floor sediments. Antibiotics have created resistant strains of disease that infect both wild and domesticated fish.

"Clouds of sea lice, incubated by captive fish on farms, swarm wild salmon as they swim past on their migration to the ocean.

"We are not taking strain off wild fisheries. We are adding to it," Naylor said. "This cannot be sustained forever."

And farther down ….

“Five international companies -- three of them based in Norway -- control most of the existing farms….In Norway, parasites have so devastated wild fish that the government poisoned all aquatic life in dozens of rivers and streams in an effort to re-boot the ecological system.

"The Norwegian companies are transferring the same operations here that have been used in Europe," said Pauly, the fisheries professor. "So we can infer that every mistake that has been done in Norway and Scotland will be replicated here." Dale Blackburn, vice president of West Coast operations for Norwegian-based Stolt Sea Farm, said his staff works very closely with its counterparts in Norway. But, he said, "It's ridiculous to think we don't learn from our mistakes and transfer technology blindly."

Still, more than a dozen farms in British Columbia have been stricken by infectious hematopoietic necrosis, a virus that attacks the kidneys and spleen of fish.

Jeanine Siemens, manager of a Stolt farm, said, "It was really hard for me and the crew" to oversee the killing of 900,000 young salmon last August because of a viral outbreak.

Grieg Seafood recently got an emergency permit from the Canadian government to dump in the Pacific 900 tons of salmon killed by a toxic algae bloom. The emergency? The weight of the dead fish threatened to sink the entire farm. Farms are typically required to bury the dead in landfills to protect wild marine life and the environment.”

The article goes on and on, and shows nothing good can come out of an open pen fish farm industry, except dollars in the coffers of those who are paid to make very bad environmental and ecological decisions.

Personally, I think open pen fish farms are not the way to go, for many reasons. ( I happen to believe that land based, aquaculture, in controlled effluent pens, with recycling and monitoring can be a good thing, much like current hatchery type systems, could be not only acceptable but good, would work.) I know I can’t make decisions for anyone else. And, I support others right to their own opinions and they can base them on whatever input they want.

Seems Tom and I don’t agree and that’s OK. I still think he is a great guy, a good fisherman, and a friend. Pretty sure we can agree to disagree, and support our rights to have and present our own differing opinions.

It has been a good learning experience for me here, Thanks to those who participated and to the Admin guys for some latitude.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[SENSEI]

it is so sad when a topic gets hijacked. this was about fishing for Atlantic salmon and now is a debate on the problems or not associated with the Atlantic salmon has taken over. I could care less about the whys and why not of fish farming and just eat salmon of any kind. specially smoked !!!!!!!

 

[hardee]

Roger, et al, Sorry for my part in the hijack. I usually try not to do that.

Now back to the regularly scheduled topic.

Enjoy the fishing and good luck in the catching.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon