A Trailer Tale

John, the garden artiste (he cuts my lawn) and I were standing, thumbs in our imaginary suspenders and chewing imaginary green shoots, as my neighbour across the street backs from his driveway, pulls across the street to in front of my house, and moves off, clipping a non-resident Lexus on his way to the Save on Foods for some chewing t’baccy. 

He gets out of his van, suspenders amply filled with girth, and assesses the Lexus, waves no problem, “Just our tires rubbed,” and drives off down the street.

The artiste and I saunter into the street to find the quarter panel dented, the tire and rim scraped, bumper pulled forward and the flashy headlight, the kind that blows your brains out at night when it comes your way, a bit cracked.

“I reckon that’s $5,000 damage, including painting the hood,” I venture. Having run into a deer on the highway, and having the same expensive headlights shifted a tad, and finding they cost $1,500 each and repairing grill work, and hood damage I couldn’t see, coming in at $3,500, I think my estimate might be low.

“I reckon,” is all John answers and we go back to lawns and computers. Well, it comes to me that my boat trailer that I hoped to put in my driveway and park my car on the street, just puts my car in the way of damage from my otherwise good dude neighbour, that he won’t tell me about.

So, I have to run it out to the Alderwood, RV & Boat Storage, behind the Waddling Dog, and pay a $1,000 a year to store my trailer that I don’t need stored… and two years goes by, in which, two years of Victoria weather pounds my trailer, until I have to go and see what, if anything, remains.

The trailer is still there, the tires are not yet flat, and when I plug in the lights, both signals work. But the wheel on the front end, that you use to raise and lower your trailer onto the ball of your tongue in your car’s hitch receiver, won’t turn. I find some WD 40 in my tool box and empty the entire can into the grease box on the top. Well, the crank cranks until it locks – in both directions – but the trailer will not raise or descend on any ball.

I call on honest Ed, my good aboriginal buddy, who owns the lot, and we both look at the crank and crank it for all we’re worth, but to no avail. The lift won’t lift or descend. “Balls,” we both say and a lot more colourful words. 

“&)()()))(^%^&%^%$^, eh,” Ed says.

(*))(*&^&*%^&$^&%*&, eh,” I answer. I find I can swing the wheel out of the way, and he says he will drop the ball clasp on my ball, adding that he can hold it while I move the ball into place. The purpose is to see if the brakes work, as well as the brake lights.  

I try moving off and he soon signals that the brakes on one side are locked, so the tire is not turning. We exchange more cuss words.

“Eh?” he ventures, but adds that it looked like the tire wanted to turn, so I might as well go around the block and see if it will unlock. “Tryn hit somethn.”

“Yeah, eh.”

As I’m pulling out of the storage site he laughs and waves me to stop. It turns out that to prevent theft I have put a lock on a kryptonite chain through a trailer wheel (that I forgot about) so I rummage out a second can of WD 40 (you can never have too much WD 40), empty it on the rust encrusted lock, and look at my keys.

On my key chain, there are two keys that I have no idea what they do, but thought they were boat ignition keys from before I had it changed. I insert one and, by Jminy, it fits in smoothly, but won’t turn a millimetre. 

“I’ll get the bull clips, eh.”

“Yeah, eh.” And I stand philosophically over the lock I forgot I had and the keys I didn’t know I had, but had not thrown out, being too superstitious to throw away anything that looked like it might still be of some small use some day. Good thing I didn’t throw them away.

Soon, honest Ed, is putting the jaws of death on the lock, and it is refusing to do anything. I give it a try, but honest Ed is larger than I, so I soon give them back and find my hacksaw in my tool box – I found out eons ago never to be anywhere where your tools are not. Hence, my toolbox, my main one, has been sitting in my stagecoach for the past 30 years.

My hacksaw goes: “D-d-d, eh,” but the lock refuses to show a cut, and honest Ed soon is back jumping on the bull clips, and finally the rusty lock does what we want which is get cut.

“Won’t be needing this anymore, eh,” honest Ed says and pitches my cut lock far into the blue sky. It returns to earth far down in the next lot, which looks, sort of, like a cross between a composting yard and dump. Hast la vista lock.

I pull out the kryptonite chain, and almost fall off my driver’s chair when, going in a circle, all four wheels on my double axel trailer turn, and brake. “Well, Lawdy, eh?”

But the crank on the wheel still won’t crank, and I am thinking that I am going to have to have a tow truck come and pick up the trailer and take it to Sherwood, and get it fixed, as in ka-ching. 

“Naw,” says honest Ed. “Ya just go git another wheel assembly, cut this one off, and put the new one on, eh?”

Ed, my good buddy, has just saved me several hundred dollars. According to him, they are generic, and any one rated at the same number of pounds just gets bolted on the trailer in the same spot and Tonto’s yer uncle. 

Well, I’m gittin a new wheel assembly at Sherwood and the best song the Eagles ever writ is playn on the radio, Desperado, and I almost fall off their ‘client’ stool because, at $50, the wheel and crank is far cheaper than the usual boat bill, which usually comes in at $1,500.

“It may be rainin, but there’s a rainbow above yeh”, Don Henley sings, and I agree, as the December sun sets in the west, meaning I have to reconvene with my good buddy, honest Ed, another day.

On this cautionary tale, my garden artiste thumbs his Stetson far back on his forehead and sez, “You couldn’t jest lift the trailer up n prop it aginst the house, like?”

“Not when it weighs 1,700 pounds, eh,” I give back, tryn not to souwnd kriticle.

The artiste raises an eyebrow, spits out some brown ‘baccy juice and we go back to lawns and computers. The moral is, as all of us afflicted with boats know: no boat related problem is ever simple, or fixed in one day, or for fifty bucks. Eh?

Fly Fishing for Pinks – North Island

We should hope that this climate change summer we have been having is not repeated. Our local rivers are devoid of water, so much so that even the smallest of salmon, pinks, are having difficulty moving into and up, and they require only a few inches to move and spawn.

Climate change will result in lower, warmer, oxygen-depleted water in summer, lack of spawning habitat until fall rain comes and then flood rains in late fall that wipe out or bury spawned eggs. The only rivers open for fishing at this time are controlled flow with dams above for water release, like the Campbell, Puntledge and Big Qualicum.

In addition, the arrival of pinks has been much slower than the norm. They arrived only last week in the Salmon, and into the Campbell, a month late for both. Volunteer hatcheries, like the well-subscribed Nile Creek fishery haven’t seen much to date.

I hesitate to suggest some headwater dams are needed to control flow because the current BC government hears: run of river power companies. The Toba Inlet desecration of 15 streams is a stark reminder that we need public – not private – dams for salmon, not power. See the image link at the bottom of this article.

And if salmon cannot get into rivers, they don’t spawn, and it’s a good question how long they will survive in saltwater before hormonal maturation kills them. In Port Alberni, there is another problem. On the good news side: 1.8 million sockeye in the Inlet. On the bad news side: the Stamp/Somass/Sproat water temperature is higher than these most sensitive of salmon can take. Those that go into the system, begin dying at 20 Degrees C.

The confluence pool of the Stamp/Sproat can be littered with dead sockeye in warm years. They look like bars of silver on the bottom, but represent a bad outcome for salmon. In addition, Qualark Creek, on the Fraser, has in the last week been 18.7 Degrees C, with the Fraser flow down 36% to 2530 cubic metres per second. Sockeye begin dying at 20 degrees C.

There is no estimate of Fraser pink run size at present, but judging by the outstanding fishing we have been having in the Victoria area, it should meet or exceed 15 million fish. DFO estimates are a week away. Locally, we seldom take these fish fly fishing, but shore anglers take some with gear in Ross Bay as well as the Victoria Golf Club (in Oak Bay) where Enterprise Channel gives way to the Flats. As well, many chinook have been taken off the corner point this year.

On my annual camping/pink fly fishing trip, I fished the estuaries of rivers north of Campbell River. The fly fishing was good, surprisingly so because two years previously (pink are two-year life-cycle fish) the fishing was abysmal. Also, the odd-year run is the poorer of the odd/even alternative, unlike the Fraser which peaks in odd years, as in 2015.

I had the great negative fortune to have my camp blow over in the daily 20 to 30 knot winds that make Johnstone Strait almost frigidly cold to stand out in for more than a few hours at a time. My Snowbee ZR2 ended up broken under my table, stove and other heavy things. Then my antediluvian All American Diamondback splintered on the shaft, rather than the more likely ferrule.

After some electrician’s tape medication (I did not have any Red-Green duct tape with me), I made a long, heavy, slow switch rod of the remaining, unbroken pieces. It cast the line a mile but I was sure happy I also had a light, responsive, Mystic, 11.5 foot, 7-8 weight switch rod with me. What a superb little rod, particularly for a wrong shoulder single Spey cast. I am left handed and the Johnstone St. wind always blows into my left side. To avoid being hooked in the face, I have cast so much off my wrong (right) shoulder, that I am better at it than off my correct (left) shoulder sans the wind.

And in cross winds, to avoid your cast blowing up and back over your shoulder, you will find that a diagonal forward stroke to the windward side will send your line out and onto the water somewhat true. Without a wind, a diagonal trajectory for your tip – bad technique – just results in an open cast with a balloon to the side and little distance.

I am told there is a video of me landing a pink on the Mystic site, but I can’t find it. See Nile Creek Fly Shop for the rods (Note 2 below). To keep from breaking the tip of your rod while releasing a fish, take a tip: when the pink has been played out, get its head on the surface and surf the fish into you by extending your rod to the side opposite the fish. When the leader comes within the grasp of your stripping hand, in the same moment, release the line from your rod hand, and the rod will straighten without breaking the tip.

Finally, please release all fish in the water. Don’t drag them up onto the gravel, remove the hook, and kick them back into the water. It breaks their slime, they may pick up a disease, their bodies are not meant to lie on shore rather than be supported by water and it may kill them.

And one final thing: one day, as we stood on the bar before deep water, a mid-size female killer whale came up in front of the guy next to me about five feet from him. He promptly turned his pants brown. And he and I released a lot of expletives.  A minute later, the same, I think, killer whale came up five feet from him, 15 from me, and we both had heart attacks.

Which leaves some interesting questions: was it the same killer whale? It sure looked like the same female of the same size. And why would it go underwater, turn a circle and come up again? Does a killer whale have a sense of humour? This implies great intelligence. Do killer whales like to scare the pants off humans? I don’t know, but they have to be really smart to appreciate their own actions.

Notes:

1.      Plutonic Power, Toba Inlet images: https://www.google.ca/search?q=toba+inlet+run+of+river+power+photos&espv=2&biw=979&bih=400&tbm=isch&imgil=IxLcxKN5cC8tgM%253A%253BAN5EZEfGdfN3jM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.sqwalk.com%25252Fbc2009%25252F001651.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=IxLcxKN5cC8tgM%253A%252CAN5EZEfGdfN3jM%252C_&dpr=1&usg=__RLyVZIGZkreg4YV1Fvwde_DDcH8%3D&ved=0CDAQyjdqFQoTCIimhtTYnMcCFQEtiAodyK8BTg&ei=SKTHVYjiF4HaoATI34bwBA#imgrc=IxLcxKN5cC8tgM%3A&usg=__RLyVZIGZkreg4YV1Fvwde_DDcH8%3D.

2.      Nile Creek Fly Shop:  http://www.nilecreekflyshop.com/. 

Dolly Varden Char and Searun Cutthroat Trout

Dolly Varden and Searun Cutthroat seem to occupy the same niche and thus should have very similar behaviour. Dollies are, in their ocean phase, so silvery it is hard to get a decent photograph because they are inevitably over exposed. But in that surface will be the faint yellow and pink spots that become so prominent when the fish have been in freshwater for some time, and turned blue. Searuns are less silvery in the ocean and with the dark spots above and below the lateral line, along with their namesake – an orange ‘slash’ under each side of their ‘chin’, or throat.

Behaviourally both salmonid species could not be more different. Searuns are more widespread in Van Isle waters, while Dollies are predominantly found in waters to the North of Campbell River a more limited range on our island. On the mainland side, the drainages can have large numbers of Bull Trout a related char species that can reach 11 pounds. I have never caught a Dolly on a WCVI stream, but have not fished them all – yet.

Both Searuns and Dollies are typically under two pounds though the occasional one may reach four pounds. There are credible accounts of the rare Searun reaching 7 pounds. And cutthroat do have freshwater non-anadromous resident cousins, though in our waters the same cannot be said of Dollies (and no Bulls either).. Cameron Lake, for example, has given up cutthroat in the low teens and the record is a 41 pound behemoth from Pryamid Lake on the mainland.

But in Puget Sound drainages, I have watched with veiny teeth Dollies sit just above the fishing boundary in the Cascade River. Large fish of five to ten pounds were clearly visible but zero below the marker. There they rested, the main-stem Skagit below being turbid and salmon filled. These may have been resident fish, due to their size, distance from saltwater and presence in an area of large urban populations.

Both species have salt- and fresh-water phases. In saltwater, Searuns are typically found as opportunistic nomads cruising from creek mouth to creek mouth. Virtually always they are found in water three, or less, feet deep, which makes them key species for some fly guys that make their living targeting these fish by moving from stream to stream in a day’s fishing. Fish half an hour, and if a Searun is not spotted, move on to the next stream on your list. Searuns inevitably reveal themselves rolling on the surface even when there is no apparent feed – insects in saltwater being rare.

As a diminutive trout, it makes sense for Searuns to be in very shallow water where larger mouths that would eat them seldom venture. A safe niche for a small fish that, like steelhead, are too bold for their own good. The adage is: if you see them you will catch them, and that includes putting a fly more than ten feet away from the fish. They are on the move and biting. That’s why we like them. Bazan Bay in Sidney being just one well-known Searun spot in our area. One wades in and casts a fly.

Dollies on the other hand tend to spend time among the kelp and divers often see them tooling around. This means they are more dominant than Searuns because such water can be as much as 60 feet deep and the ling and other large mouths need be avoided. But Dollies live among them, a distinct difference, different feed, different dominance and wariness.

Searuns are vastly more opportunistic than Dollies, coming into estuaries daily. While they have months of preference, including summer, arriving just before salmon, and eating eggs during the spawn. They also can arrive in much larger schools than Dollies. Searuns are also opportunistic in terms of spawning, and may spawn anywhere from January to September, in small streams off main-stems when rain allows. Anglers need to know Searun habits in a dozen drainages to have good fly fishing on an annual basis. Much knowledge. Oh and it is quite common in the Victoria area to find these fish at mid-tide levels.

Dollies tend to enter estuaries just after the ebb when the flood begins to push. While they may enter at such times in large schools, they are more like chinook that happen to be in the same place as other chinook, not because they school, but because the structure and feed draw them to a definable spot at the same time.

Once on-shore, Dollies will be seen frequently on the surface, typically sipping at or whacking whatever freshwater hatch is flowing out at the same time. Keep a Tom Thumb for such times, and back up as the fish enter, keeping them below you. They will whack the dry fly to smithereens and keep on whacking it even though, with floatant, it looks like a blob.

Minnow patterns will work for both species in estuarial situations, including epoxy minnows, amphipods, along with handle bar flies and a standard Mickey Fin for Searuns. A standard Muddler will do for both, but once in freshwater, Dollies have a preference for blue, not a first choice for Searuns. Dollies seldom hit pink in saltwater.

Both species spawn in freshwater. Dollies come in for this purpose in late summer and hold until the water temperature, in October, hits 10 degrees. After spawning they tend to mass at the bottom of deep pools, surprisingly staying out of the way and hesitant, until spring where they move back to saltwater.

Searuns, on the other hand, typically winter in saltwater, entering freshwater for feeding and spawning, based on the system’s calendar. You will often see them in spring, keeping close to spawning steelhead. They hybridize with summer steelhead, presumably because they spawn sooner than winter steelhead, and in systems where there are fewer summers. Then Searuns go back to saltwater after being found more than ten miles above the salt during the spawn.

Cuttbows have behaviour that is a mix of steelhead and cutthroat. They definitely will chase and out whack what a cutthroat will hit – the casting pattern for cutthroat is every two feet, and based on woody debris, whereas cuttbows are found with rocks as well as logs and the last 30 degrees of the swing, more like steelhead.  And orange is a colour of preference, and why, as I have mentioned, I tie simple orange marabou Rats along with Popsicle style marabou red over orange over yellow.

You can tell the percentage of cutthroat or steelhead – they can hybridize over several generations – the fish has in it. More steelhead and the fish will jump several times. More cutthroat and the fish will seldom leave the water, preferring to dive. At 50/50 the fight is on the surface.

And Dollies have a habit, also suggesting dominance, of one fish dashing in to hit a female salmon in the side, resulting in disgorged eggs that the other Dollies scarf up. This behaviour has led, not on Van Isle, some anglers to make a point of killing all Dollies on the grounds they result in fewer salmon. Never seen this myself, and certainly would not kill a Dolly, but it is a common tale.

Q and As December – It’s a Wrap for 2014

The Hatch: This on-line fly fishing magazine is available at no charge. Ask to be put on the email list. See: http://www.hatchmag.com/.

SFAB Concept Paper: Your SFAB board has put out a document, with request for comments to

Gerry Kristianson, or other board member, both editorial and substantive.

The paper identifies specific outcomes to address the following seven goals:

Since January 2010 when it was first formally articulated, the Board has steadily pursued the vision of “a sustainable and vibrant recreational fishery in British Columbia, providing broad social and economic benefits through diverse opportunities that recognize and respect other users of the resource.”

The framing of this vision was assembled around the following seven strategic goals, all of which were developed in collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment, and after consultations with First Nations, other fisheries sectors, and environmental groups:

1.      Achieve healthy and productive marine and freshwater ecosystems that support recreational fisheries.

2.      Realize the full social and economic benefit of the recreational fishery.

3.      Maintain and enhance a consultative framework which provides for a supportive relationship between governments and the recreational fishing community, and encourages a healthy and respectful dialogue with other users through inclusive and meaningful processes.

4.      Ensure that the management of the recreational fishery is based on the best available information while taking into account local and traditional knowledge.

5.      Provide sustainable fishing opportunities which consider the needs of and foster the potential of the recreational fishery.

6.      Establish a framework for sharing responsibility for activities which benefit the recreational fishery.

7.      Promote understanding of the recreational fishery and recreational fisheries management practices.

Please provide Gerry K with your comments. I suggested two financing points. If the SFAB is to become a not-for-profit society, the preamble and purposes should be written in a way that allows for the society to be designated a ‘charity’ by the Canadian Revenue Agency, and thus to be able to raise funds with donation tax receipts going to donors. Further, to retain that helpful designation, political comments have to be kept out of the discussion.

Second, as there are 300,000 saltwater anglers in BC, a stamp, like the chinook stamp on our licences (or charged to anglers to affiliate with the society), would raise, for every $10 charged, $3 million and multiples of $3 million with additional $10 increments. Such funding would provide a seriously positive outcome for helping our fisheries.

The South Vancouver Island Anglers Coalition (SVIAC) Newsletter came out this past week:

1.      With better Fraser chinook numbers, the SVIAC was able to convince DFO that Area 19 and 20 anglers should be able to retain one unmarked chinook of any length as of June 14. The hope is that the same measure will be authorized in 2015.

2.      Alpine Group Juan de Fuca Fishing Tournament last June was completely sold out, $65,000 in prizes was awarded and $19,500 was raised for the South Vancouver Island Chinook Revitalization Initiative.

3.      A meeting with DFO Pacific brass yielded progress on several fronts: Priority access for sport fishers for specific species; Resolution of the Fraser chinook issues; and, Southern Vancouver Island chinook revitalization.

The chinook revitalization has multiple objectives: to bring back the Sooke River to its optimum chinook spawning population through short term enhancement and habitat restoration, for the longer term goal.

With 1 to 5 million chinook smolts and netpens, the southern killer whale population is supported as is fishing in the area. A cost/benefit analysis will be done along with the socio-economic return to the Salish Sea.

4.      The 21.5 million Fraser sockeye return did not materialize in Juan de Fuca as warm temperatures and possibly algal blooms resulted in a 97% Johnstone Strait diversion. Ditto for Fraser Chinook. Inside fishing from Campbell River (22,500 chinook caught) to Nanaimo was terrific.

5.      The Malcolm decision was handed down this year and it reaffirmed that the Minister of DFO has the right to reallocate public fish, in this case, the 3% halibut quota from the commercial sector that had been given to the sport side.

6.      Commercial halibut fisherman, Bob Fraumeni, and owner of Finest At Sea Seafood Producers in Victoria pled guilty to illegally fishing for halibut in the inside waters of Juan de Fuca strait without holding the correct licence. The catch’s value of $14,164 was donated to the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

7.      The International Pacific Halibut Commission meets in January. The total allowable catch for Canada is 5.78 million pounds. Our representatives will be seeking 7.5 and a repeat of 2014’s halibut catch, which resulted in our area being extended to December 31, 2014.

8.      The 2015 Alpine Group Juan de Fuca Fishing Tournament seeks to pay out more than $100,000 in prizes in 2015. Pick up tickets at Island Outfitters, or on the SVIAC site. www.anglerscoalition.com.

Salmon Outlook – Netpens for Killer Whales

Salmon Outlook: DFO has released its Salmon Outlook for 2015, a summary of stock numbers for the entire province and all five species of salmon. I have attached the PDF to the email sent to list members. Numeral 1 is a weak stock, while numeral 4 indicates a strong stock.

Their summary is:

A total of 91 Outlook Units were considered and outlooks categorized for 84. Six units were data

deficient (ND), and one pink unit was not applicable (NA). Thirty eight (38) Outlook Units are

likely to be at or above target abundance (categories 3, 4, 3/4), while 28 are expected to be of some conservation concern (categories 1, 2, 1/2). The remaining 18 Outlook Units have mixed outlook levels (categories 1/3, 1/4, 2/3, 2/4). Overall, the outlook for 2015 has inmproved relative to the previous outlook (2014 for most species but 2013 for pink). Fourteen (14) Outlook Units improved in category (Areas 7 to 10 sockeye; Fraser Spring 42, Fraser Spring 52 and Fraser Summer 52 chinook; Area 3, Area 12, Haida Gwaii East, Skeena and Skeena High Interior coho; Areas 11 to 13 and Areas 3 to 6 pink; Areas 11 to 13, Georgia Strait and Areas 7 to 10 chum). Eight units declined in category (Early Stuart, Early Summer North Thompson, Fall Portage and Fall South Thompson sockeye; WCVI Hatchery chinook; WCVI coho; Georgia Strait West pink; WCVI chum).

Here is my summary of the 24 page document:

Sockeye: Fraser sockeye runs returning average or better, i.e., some harvestable numbers, include the Okanagan, Early Summer South Thompson, Summer Chilko (often a high component of the run, that will exceed its average level of 1.55 million), Summer Nechako (568,000 on average), Summer Quesnel, Summer Harrison, Fall South Thompson, Fall Birkenhead, with five year old sockeye from the extremely large 2010 run contributing to 2015 escapements. It looks like some fishing opportunities in Georgia Strait, and, depending on water temp, Juan de Fuca, with action required for low stocks like Cultus Lake.

Anglers will be glad to know that Port Alberni’s Somass sockeye (particularly the Sproat) are rated at 4, and thus spring action looks likely; as does the Port Hardy area for Quatse and some Nimpkish fish. Surprisingly, Rivers Inlet, its Owikeno run drastically depressed since the early ‘90s – once the second largest commercial fishery in BC, in some years higher than the Skeena/Nass – have showed some improvement in recent years, but unlikely to continue in 2015.

Chinook: Fraser 4-2s (Spius, Coldwater, Bonaparte) and 5-2s (Lower Chilcotin, Westroad, Birkenhead) that have disrupted Juan de Fuca June fisheries in the past few years show patchy minor improvement; ditto for Fraser Summer 4-1s, including the Harrison, with the Vedder looking better.

WCVI chinook from hatchery systems (Conuma, Robertson Creek, Nitinat) will offer medium numbers of fish to be caught in Nootka and Barkley sounds (no estimate of Marble Creek numbers for NWCVI and Quatsino).  Disappointingly, Cowichan chinook, the indicator stream for the Pacific Salmon Commission, continues below average (2,400 adults, 1,100 jacks as of October 22).

Coho: Fraser coho are below average in numbers but improving. WCVI wild coho will be in average numbers. Port Hardy area rivers will bring above average returns. Quinsam returns for the Campbell River area should provide fishable numbers, too.

Don’t fall off your chair just yet, but Georgia Strait coho (that crashed in the late ‘80s) to Black Creek, an indicator stream, and Cowichan coho are above the levels of recent years. Northern BC numbers are good in most locations for 2015.

Pinks: Fraser pinks should greatly exceed the average number of 13.4 million for odd-numbered years. The 2014 fry output exceeded 604 million – the average is 443 million. So the easiest salmon to catch should flood local waters in the coming summer.

Fly anglers who do the beach fishery thing, from Campbell River to Port Hardy, the even-numbered year prevails and thus angling should be decidedly average in 2015. South of Campbell River, volunteer netpen operations have shown wildly fluctuating returns. Shore anglers should sleuth in-season information before setting out for the Cowichan to Salmon Point terminal netpen runs.

Chum: Fraser chum numbers have been variable in the past few years, hovering near 1 million fish (should be double that for a healthy return). Current fishing plans are uncertain. Don’t expect large numbers in WCVI waters. Fishable numbers should return on ECVI in 2015. So the Brown’s Bay fishery should be on in 2015 and in terminal ECVI estuaries.

Chemical Contaminants in killer whales: During the South Vancouver Island Angler Coalition/Sport Fishing Advisory Board meeting last Thursday it was noted that though our area has not received netpens for chinook salmon that we have proposed for several years, DFO seems to have accepted our representatives’ suggestion that local waters need numerous netpens for chinook. Our fishery is largely USA chinook, and it would show wisdom on all our collected selves to put some BC, probably Nitinat, chinook in the ocean as our help for the endangered southern killer whales in our waters, with an excess for angling, too.

Recently the Raincoast Conservation Foundation did an op-ed in the Times Colonist newspaper, suggesting that fishing should be terminated because it kills killer whales in the Salish Sea. I sent them emails to point out, among other things, that low chinook numbers in Georgia are really the result of low Cowichan chinook because they stay inside and thus are the fish of preference in the winter. Enhancement efforts need improvement. So coming netpens look to be a big help in the ‘Salish Sea’.

It was also pointed out by Jeremy Maynard, an SFAB chairman from Campbell River, that the issues withy the southern killer whales are largely the result of chemical contaminants. I found a really good, succinct discussion of the issue and suggest that everyone read it: http://wildwhales.org/conservation/threats/toxins/.

It does indeed show that contaminant levels of these peak predators – POPs, PCBs, dioxins, furans, etc. –  are very high; however, southern killer whales can have levels as much as four times higher than northern pods. The main problems are reproductive failure and immuno-suppression so the animal gets a disease. This may explain the dead female killer whale found near Courtenay with a near-term fetus in the past week. 

Necropsy to come. Inside Chinook, the preferred prey animal, have much higher levels of chemicals than those found in northern BC waters. And during summer months, killer whales eat more mature chinook, with lower fat levels and thus have to eat more contaminated prey than northern populations.

Also, oil spills have a great effect on marine mammals because they apparently do not smell them, and thus do not avoid the area. After the Exon Valdez spill in 1989 one northern pod lost 33% of its members in one year, after being filmed eating in a spill. Another pod, also so filmed, lost 41% of its members in one year, due to toxicity of ingested oil. Its reproductive success has been zero since 1989 and they approach extinction.

What we anglers can do is chip in and help out our killer whales by putting more chinook in the sea. Eliminating oil spills would help them breed. Also, there is research on this issue by Drs. Dick Beamish and Brian Riddell that you can look into.