What a year for the DFO to make the call to shut down recreational angling with little or no notice.
Are our fisheries in dire straits? The halibut quota was fulfilled in late autumn and Skeena completely closed in June/July.
Drastic measures scare the heck out of me, especially since the DFO has been collecting data long before my time, and probably most of the readers’ time as well.
Data collection is a tool of calculated predictions on run size for salmon. What the data tells me is that female chinook, who normally produce approximately 10,000 eggs, are now carrying 20 per cent less.
Halibut slot sizes are inching down more and more, and a chicken will be our only possession if we keep this up.
Canada is allocated so many pounds of halibut per year, and the recreational sector receives the least of that quota.
What comes next will be determined by the fish in the sea.