Canada compared to Alaska - Forums Archive

Once and Future

2012-02-21 21:40:23

I decided to start a new topic as the thread under "Frozen Chum" (or whatever it was) had morphed into a different discussion that had nothing to do with the title and was 2 pages long. The discussion had changed to how Canadian commercial trolling was different from the Alaskan culture.

And the 2 cents I wanted to ad was this: A few years ago when I was looking at Canadian boats, I met a Canadian troller who had retired. I liked him. He was second generation, and still very physically fit, and I would guess in his late 50's. But he sold his boat a couple years previous. And he had a painting of his troller up in his office. And the title of the painting was "End of an Era". To me, that was very telling as to the current state of affairs of the Canadian trolling industry.

I think their government has decided fish farms are the future.

yak2you2

2012-02-22 01:56:52

Truly sad, the way the Canadian trollers have been sold down the river. It does seem like the Canadian govt. Is dead set on pushing ahead with fish farming, no matter what the cost. Worst of

all, is the real reason. It is my humble opinion that what really has to go away is the wild salmon, so they can turn the rivers into cheap hydro power factories.

A sad harbinger when you consider the already willingness of the American govt. to over look it's own endangered salmon runs down south. It seems everything really does have it's price.

Abundance

2012-02-22 02:02:07

This would have been a good thing to do earlier. I think that the conversation might be getting exhausted now though. It was a good discussion, with a lot of things to be learned. Maybe it would be good to copy the pertinent parts of the thread over to here. It would make the information easier to find for future reference if it was under something with Canada/Alaska in the title. People just coming to the forum in the future might find it educational, and some politically active people might want to use it when shaping their policies. There are still a few things that I want to ask our friends in BC as well.

Salty

2012-02-22 02:25:58

Good idea, Garret.

Abundance

2012-02-22 05:04:47

This is the transcript of the previous posts, so folks have an idea of why this new thread exists. This begins just after I made an ill informed comment concerning the Canadian fishery.

by Hotspott on Thu Feb 16, 2012 3:13 pm

"Abundance", just so you know...we do not fish 8 lines in Canada....haven't been able to do that for 30 years (though before that it was unlimited and I did know of a few guys who fished 11 lines (bow line, main line, 3 sets of "pigs" and one off the mast) ....you have to be pretty creative and avoid any rock piles! One of the guys who used to do this now admits he "might have been a bit too hungry in his younger days"!) Present limit is 6 lines, which most boats use. Yes, many FAS boats freeze everything....there is certainly a market for frozen troll pinks....and even round, frozen pinks, most of which are sold for bait.

Hotspott

by Abundance on Thu Feb 16, 2012 3:50 pm

Thanks for the clarification. I fished close to Canadian boats off of Muzon, and counted 8 lines, but the front ones must just have been going to his stabalizers. It's surprising really how little we sometimes know about how fishing is done from place to place. I would actually like to hear a lot more stories like the one above. Fishing 11 lines! What a guy won't do for another fish. Do guys get much for frozen pinks and chums?

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

by Clinkerboy on Fri Feb 17, 2012 8:10 am

Eight lines used to be the norm, ten was common. Easthope was even making five-spool gurdies for awhile. I heard of the odd boat trying to run fourteen but I never seen it done. That was in the late 70's when the last boat building boom happened. Now we all have six, just pile more gear on, same result. I fish Dixon Entrance and West Side of the Charlottes, non retention of Chums in our fishery. FAS pinks were $1/lb. last season.

Clinkerboy

by Salty on Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:53 am

Were those dressed bled, or round bled pinks?

Salty

by Clinkerboy on Fri Feb 17, 2012 4:06 pm

The pinks were dressed, head-off.

Clinkerboy

by Trnaround on Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:05 am

Fishing the West Side of the Charlottes and Dixon Entrance you are no stranger to bad weather, seems like all of those big low pressure systems start there and move north. Out of curiosity what mix of salmon species do you get out there and what is your best producing type of fish?

Trnaround

by Clinkerboy on Sat Feb 18, 2012 10:49 am

Our fishery is a Chinook fishery which is small, last season a 13 day fishery for about 75 thousand chinook. That is our main fishery, we also have a coho fishery which landed around 300,000 fish. Pinks are incidental to those fisheries however there is a directed pink fishery on what we call the AB-line, Chacon and Muzon. Not many particpants due to a poor market and most of the humpie-barges fish for tuna now.

Clinkerboy

by Trnaround on Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:50 pm

Thanks just curious, so is it true the Canadian Government is buying back troll permits this year? How is that going?

Trnaround

by Clinkerboy on Sat Feb 18, 2012 6:36 pm

I'm not really going to go there, I think everyone knows the details of the treaty.

Clinkerboy

by Salty on Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:17 am

I have a question for the Canadians. You say you have a chum non-retention fishery. How does that work? Can you successfully tune your gear to catch different species of salmon while avoiding others?

Salty

by Clinkerboy on Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:27 pm

Although we have had significant returns of chums to our Central and South coast, encounter rates of chum salmon are very low in our outside fishery, barely measurable. Conservation is given as the reason for non-retention, however I suspect domestic allocation is nearer to the truth. We try and conduct our Chinook fishery in areas of low Coho abundances and the reverse is applied to our Coho fishery. Catch and release offers a low rate of return (pay), I would imagine you have the same issues in your fishery.

Clinkerboy

by Abundance on Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:26 pm

I understand about the chums. If I put on chum gear out off of Cape Addington, I would have more chums than I knew what to do with. Fishing king/coho gear, you might never even know that they were there. I have heard that some Canadian trollers target sockeyes. Is that true? I don't know of any Alaskan trollers that deliberately fish for the reds. My dad tried it once and had kings rip all of his little pink sockey bugs off.

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

Abundance

by Clinkerboy on Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:03 pm

Yes, that is true. Our inside trollers(Southern) target sockeye although it is cyclical fishery on major runs which are usually fours years apart. 2010 was a major fishery for them. We in the Northern fishery cannot access those stocks however. We can retain sockeye but they are few as Skeena sockeye are not biters.

Clinkerboy

by Hotspott on Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:21 pm

I might also add that the BC coast is divided into 3 license areas for trollers....Inside Vancouver Island, West coast of Vancouver and North (of Cape Caution). You must have a license to fish each area....and licenses are around $100 000. Most boats have one license, although there actually are quite a few with 2....and a few have all 3 licenses. All told, there are only 538 licenses on the coast.

Oh, and another restriction to avoid retention of other species, is a "plugs only " fishery, during August on the west coast of Vancouver Island focussing on chinook. Last season this was just a 3 day fishery.

Those sockeye that bite well that Clinkerboy is talking about are Fraser River sockeye...which could be caught on the west coast of the Charlottes...and the west coast of Vancouver Island, but fisheries policy has basically decided that they are all caught in Johnstone Strait.

Hotspott

by Carol W on Mon Feb 20, 2012 6:26 am

As long as we are talking how does the ifq fishery on chinook work? Are the fishermen happy with it? Is it more economical for the fleet than open access?

Carol W

by Clinkerboy on Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:42 am

That is what would called a hot issue here. I can offer only my observations and opinion as I speak for no others. Our ITQ Chinook fishery is a demonstration fishery. It was implemented as a management tool to slow the competitive fishery down in order to reduce the impacts of stocks of concern. The available TAC is divided equally to the number of licenses. The first few years were reasonably successfull as the season was extended somewhat. People could acquire more quota from people that did not fish. They could develope a fishing plan to suit themselves in other words. Did it work? I don't have a good answer for that, however the number of our licenses doubled as this seemed a better option to what they came from.We now have a very competitive fishery again, in small areas,lots of congestion, similar to what was described in your Winter Line fishery. Is it economical, for the larger operations renting fish is just a cost of doing business, they can process(freeze) heavy production. Smaller freezer/boats are limited to what they can handle, fresh boats have very limited options. Will this system survive, I do not know. I imagine it will depend on how many of us are left after the results of mitigation. Also, the recreation sector has priority access for Chinook and Coho, we can only harvest what is left after their needs are met. Not any new boats being built here.Re: Frozen Dog Salmon

by Hotspott on Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:55 am

A couple of questions...then a couple of comments?

How many licenses (permits) are there in Alaska? Does the permit give you the opportunity to fish the entire area that is open for trolling?

Is an IFQ being considered?

Clinkerboy talked about the number of licenses doubling for the area he fishes (North). This was a result of the opportunity given to boats to select the area they wished to fish (from the 3 areas mentioned...presently there are 282 licenses in the North, 165 WCVI and 91 Inside). Having a chinook fishery with reasonable numbers available per license....as well as having an opportunity to fish coho and pinks, caused many a boat to choose this area as the opportunity to make a consistent $ was important to them (the WCVI fishery is strictly a chinook fishery and is very limited each year with short openings in April, May, June, August and maybe Sept...as well as winter openings which mainly appeal to the limited number of fishermen living there). The Inside fishery is mainly a sockeye fishery (which has only been open 2 of the last 4 years....with one outstanding year in 2010) as well as pinks (which not many people fish) and a small chum fishery in October.

As well, many of the larger trollers take their chinook quota in the North in June and then do not bother with the coho but go tuna fishing.

One of the problems with the ITQ fishery in the north is that they are also limited as the amount of WCVI chinook the fishery is allowed to intercept, so, when a magical number is reached, the fishery is closed....it doesn't matter whether you have caught your quota or not. This is what occurred last year, especially to fishermen who had a WCVI license as well, as that fishery was still open in June when the North opened up....so they were unable to make it up there in time for the first few days of the opening and many fishermen were left holding quota when it closed prematurely....some they had bought off of other fishermen. The previous year this was not a problem as it was open a lot longer, so it did not appear it was going to be a problem....like it turned out to be. Who knows what will happen this season?

As Clnkerboy suggests, ITQ is a hot issue.....and various opinions are expressed. I am pretty sure many of the smaller, one man operations, prefer it. As well,of course, in the past, many boats would not fish any nasty weather as you could just fish a day longer in nice weather to catch your quota...though, maybe that might change as a result of what happened last season. Of course, I am pretty sure Fisheries likes it though....as it is much easier to manage.

Now, tell us a bit more about your fishery!

Hotspott

by Salty on Mon Feb 20, 2012 9:24 am

Thank you so much, I am going to copy your reply and append it to our comments on our Chum Troll proposals for the BOF here next week.

It is also my experience that our gear can be highly selective to the salmon species, and as you mention on the sockeye, stock, that we are targeting. I fine tune my chum trolling technique for each stock I am targeting for example. The Sockeye in SE are similar to the Skeena sockeye in that they don't bite. But, having sport fished on the Kenai River, let me tell you that is a different story. I spent the summer of 1975 with a fly rod in SE trying to get sockeye to bite in the creeks. I think I hooked 4 in two months. Then I tried the Kenai/Russian River in 1976. Holy toledo, those sockeye would come chasing these big streamers all the way across the river. Different stock!.

Salty

by Abundance on Mon Feb 20, 2012 10:38 am

The are open is Cape Muzon to Cape Suckling, a little bit less area than the B.C. shoreline, I believe. There are two permits, Hand troll, with up to two line hand operated, and Power troll, up to four lines hydraulically operated. Combined there are around twelve hundred permits, I think.

The winter troll season is October 11th through the end of April, 45,000 king quota, all species may be retained except cohos, although it is rare to catch anything but a king. Participation is highest during October, March and April, with up to around five hundred boats at the peak. The fishery is within the "Surfline", basically behind islands and inside bays. This causes the congestion on the "winter line", as everybody wants to get as close to the open ocean and the large schools of fish as possible. The king size limit is always 28 inches.

Spring fishery targets hatchery raised kings and chums, and begins when the winter quota is caught or May 1st through the end of June. Coho retention begins June 15th. Open areas are few in this season, with only a handful of areas open full time. Much of the waters are only open a few day a week, depending on the amount of wild stock kings being caught around there. Most of the boats target kings, but the number targeting chums grows quickly through June. Catch rates vary wildly with the finicky spawner kings, with ten percent of the boats catching ninety percent of the fish. Some boats begin to target cohos in late June. The price for kings generally takes a steep nosedive in late June, when the gilnetters begin operating in full. Most king/cohos are sold dressed, and most pink/chums are sold round/bled. There are exemption to this, but it is the standard.

The summer season is the main season, with over a thousand boats usually participating. The season opens July 1st, all species retention and all the waters of Southeast Alaska open. The king quota is usually around 100,000-150,000, and takes one to two weeks to catch. The season is always closed before the full quota is caught, so that we can have a smaller king opening in August. The fleet divides between chum/coho boats at this point, although many boats never left off fishing chums. I hear that a few boats target pinks, but cannot confirm that. This is also the season that freezer boats begin operating, but the number of FAS boats are few, and getting fewer with the increasing price of fuel and the stagnant price of fish. We have a 5-10 day closure in August, then a small king opening that lasts a few days. Boats continue fishing chums/cohos until September 20th, with participation dropping rapidly after the first week of September when catch rates begin to dwindle. On years with exceptional return, the season may be extended to the end of September. A couple of hatchery area remain open, but participation is almost nonexistent.

I believe that IFQ for kings has been/is being considered, but do not know for sure.

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

Abundance

by Abundance on Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:58 am

This link has some pretty good information about the history and process of salmon trolling in Alaska. http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/FedAidpdfs/FMR11-10.pdf. I haven't read it through, but it probably answers some of your questions.

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

Abundance

by Salty on Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:21 pm

Abundance,

Great summation of the Alaska troll fishery.

Salty

by Hotspott on Mon Feb 20, 2012 2:01 pm

Briefly looked through it and it is a nice summation. It looks like a very organanized fishery.

One thing I noticed is the estimation process as to how many fish have been caught during the season. One thing DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) has implemented here...is daily reporting....at least for chinook and sockeye. Fishermen are required to either phone in (via VHF or SAT phone) or submit an e report at the end of each day (or early the next morning) so managers know the next morning when they walk in, how many have been caught the previous day. Takes the "estimation" process out of it. As well, every fisherman has to submit a log book at the end of the season with all the numbers in it. Do you have something similar?

Hotspott

by Salty on Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:28 pm

No!

Salty

by Abundance on Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:11 pm

There is no daily reporting requirement for salmon fishing. The shore based processors turn in the catch reports reports regularly, and the government has actually been cracking down on tardiness in sending the reports in. Some boats sell their own fish and the responsibility of reporting falls on them, but its still trip based, not day to day. This does lead to some delay in issuing closure announcements, but I cannot recall them messing up an opening by misjudging the number of fish caught. Frequent reporting by cell/sat phone is required in some of our fisheries, like freezer shrimping, so it is not something that they are unwilling to try if they think it necessary.

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

Abundance

by Abundance on Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:42 pm

"licenses are around $100 000. Most boats have one license, although there actually are quite a few with 2....and a few have all 3 licenses." Does each license cost 100k? If so, how do you guys afford to eat? An Alaskan Power troll permit goes for $30,000-35,000, and a Hand troll permit goes for $10,000-15,000. Alaska will loan a fisherman the money to get set up with a boat and permit for almost any fishery as well. That's what I did for my permit, and I was given ten years to pay it off at 8% interest. Does B.C. have something similar?

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

Abundance

by Clinkerboy on Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:23 pm

Licenses go up and down in value here. A lot of speculation takes place, it is difficult for new entrants to even contemplate buying in. Various Government licenses buy-back schemes, transfers to natives and the mitigation are keeping values high. Out of the 538 I doubt there is 300 that could be traded easily as alot of licenses are married to other fisheries. There is no government policy that I know of to assist a fishermen for a purchase. Until recently banks would not accept a license as collateral, I not even sure if they do now. We used to have a program called a Fishermen's Improvement Loan back in the 70's but that was just a loan garantee, banks still wanted your house as collateral. That ended with the high interest rates in the early 80's and nothing replaced it. Age demographics are going to be a major problem here very shortly, I probably represent the average age of the fleet, I will be 66 this year.

Clinkerboy

by Carol W on Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:42 pm

The average age of a coop member is 57 and the majority of the members are trollers so we have the same issue.

Carol W

by Abundance on Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:58 pm

I don't know if we have as strong of an issue as our Canadian brethren. I myself am only 23, in my sixth year of fishing on my own boat. I can think of at least four other twenty somethings just on my local harbor that are getting involved in trolling. I know of a few other youngsters that are getting into other fisheries. A permit doesn't sit around idle for very long when it is offered on the market. Getting into trolling is actually pretty affordable, with a basic wooden troller and permit combo going for around $40,000-60,000. I think that a lot of the demographic issue is that many trollers are originals, people who got into it early on. I can't imagine retiring from this life, and many people keep on trolling into their seventies or more. Why should they sell their permit until they are ready to leave? I bought mine from a an old timer troller in his mid-eighties. I expect there to be a more significant shift in the age of fisherman as time goes on, but for now the majority of the fleet are baby boomers, as it probably should be. My parents generation make the largest demographic in both our nations. The futures of the fisheries are important to the Alaskan government, and they continue to make it easier for new people to get into the industry. The future has many uncertainties, but a lack of people to pick up the torch is not one of them. As an aside, banks up here won't take a permit as collateral because they aren't allowed to repossess a permit. Only the state can take it from you. You can use it as collateral for a state fisheries loan however.

Garrett Hagen, F/V Abundance

Abundance

by Abundance on Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:37 pm

I suppose that one question that has not been asked is how is fishing down there? Do you guys find fish hard to find, are fish smaller than they should be? This last year was incredibly hit or miss up here, very small cohos, big kings if you were in the right place, small ones everywhere else. Some big pinks, and small chums. Some runs failed almost completely, some were booming. It was a very unusual year. And the weather sucked. Did guys down there do all right?

Trnaround

2012-02-22 06:02:25

This forum is great, talking fisherman to fisherman, across borders and all the way up and down the coast openly is valuable and never really been done before. There was one comment that Clinkerboy mentioned that was fairly shocking. The priority in Canada was to give access to the Sport Fishing Industry for Kings and Coho and the troll fleet got what was left over (not his exact words). I guess the priority as far as harvesting salmon for food is their production of pen raised salmon not wild caught. I have a question, what would be the reason for doing it that way instead of enhancing the wild fish or restoring them?

Clinkerboy

2012-02-23 16:23:50

I am having a hard time to continue with this as I don't really want to get political. I will try to sum up the history as I see it though. There was a decision made to have the fish-farms supply the market, sports to get springs and coho and the natives to get a larger portion of the returns in river fisheries. What impacted trollers the most was the allocation policy created in 1999. Briefly it states, 95% of the available sockeye,pink and chum will be given to the commerial fishery, 5% is set aside for the sports. Priority acccess of Chinook and coho will be given to the recreational fishery, these two species are outside of the umbrella of the 95%. The policy further states on Chinook and coho that after conservation, first nations and recreational needs are met and if abundances permit directed commercial fisheries can occur. That basically sums up the end of our Era.

Abundance

2012-02-23 17:30:59

I understand your sentiments. Please be assured that none of us want to bring up something painful or contentious. Most of what we hear from across the border is is either a rumor or from a sketchy newspaper article. We really appreciate your information and veiwpoint. I am very sorry to to see that you guys don't have better news. If its any consolation, every trolling community from San Diego to Yakutat has thought their time was over at some point, only to unexpectedly get a second wind. I hope this doesn't bring up something negative, but do your seiners and gillnetters seem to be in a similar spot?

Clinkerboy

2012-02-23 19:42:28

Sorry to continue to be negative but the restrictions on harvesting chinook and coho has affected the net fleets here as well. But you are right, things might change. Most fishermen are optimists afterall.

kjwelder

2012-02-24 05:37:48

Here's to optimism, realism, honesty, and being salty.

Sincere thanks to the participants of this thread for sharing.

Karl

Trnaround

2012-02-24 13:57:30

Well said Karl, there were some tough questions answered here and some real insight gained.