Lower Fraser ban on salmon fishing hits sport fishery hard

After reporting a historically low run of Fraser River sockeye, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)has cut offrecreational anglersfrom all salmon fishing on the river.

Lower Mainland anglers claimthedecision is overly cautious.

"The fishing fraternity is very, very disappointed," Fraser River Sportfishing Alliance spokesman Rod Clapton told CBC'sThe Early Edition,"We just got our fishery open four or five days ago, and now it's closed again."

Claptonsays there is no need to ban all salmon fishing in order to protectsockeye.

"If you've got speeders on the freeway, are you going to shut down the whole freeway?" He said. "Wehave a selective chinookfishery that we've demonstrated in the past has virtually no impact on sockeye stocks."

He wants fisheries like that one, whichdon't specificallytarget sockeye, to remain open.

Too risky, saystheDFO.

"There are impacts from incidental harvests, people targeting other species and ending up with a sockeye on their hook, and even though the sockeye would be released, there would be impacts on their survival," Jennifer Nener, the area director for the Lower Fraserfishery,told CBC's B.C. Almanac.

In explaining the DFO's decision, she points to theinitial projectionof a2.2 million sockeye run.

"The forecast for this year was low to begin with," saysNener, "Currently we're looking at a total run size in the order of about a million, which isthe lowest that we have seen."

Clapton says he and his colleagues appreciate theDFO's concern.

'We feel there are other options'

"If it's required, we do support the closure because of the low numbers,"says Clapton."Though we feel there are other options."

He says if theDFO had worked more closely with the sport fishereryleading up to salmon season, the situation might not be so dire.

"I just hope this is a wake-up call for DFO to start workingwith our communities to ensure that selective fishing is practised by all, and maybe this won't be quite as serious in the future."