03/09/2014
Subject: 2014 Fishing To Be The Best Ever!
Hi everyone, I just came back from a meeting up in Nanaimo on Saturday where about 9 senior DFO science staff were giving us a presentation. Included was a forecast by their science branch on what we can expect to see this year for salmon returns. The news could not be any better!! Their words were something like...you will see fishing this year better than you have seen in your lifetime. That is quite the prediction, as I have seen some exception fishing seasons in my lifetime. The good news is for Chinook, Sockeye and Coho this year. They told us that they observed a 50% ratio of returning 3 year old Chinook jacks in the overall 2013 spawning returns. They told us that of the 7000 Chinook that returned to the Cowichan last year, 4000 were 3 year old jacks. It was the same all up and down the west coast of Vancouver Island. What does this mean? It means that this upcoming brood year has done very well as 90% of these fish return as 4 year old fish. Take the Cowichan numbers as an example. If the 4000 3 year old fish make up only 10% of this years run of returning 4 year old fish, the potential number this year could be 35,000 fish.
Sockeye numbers are even more impressive. They normally see 30-40 thousand jacks in the Port Alberni sockeye run. Last year the number was 400,000!!!! Do the math. Unbelievable. Many of you will remember the record sockeye run that happened back in 2010. That year DFO predicted 11 million fish and we ended up with over 34 million. This is the year the offspring from those fish will make their migration back to spawn. The juveniles from this run were observed leaving the Fraser River in record numbers 2 years ago. DFO is predicting a low of 22 million and a 90% likelihood of over 75 million!!! I'm not sure I can comprehend fishing that might be twice as good as 2010.
The same good news will continue for our fall returns of Coho salmon. The fall fishing the past 3 years has been as good as we've seen and the local streams have seen record returns. A lot of work has been done by small community based volunteer groups to bring these fish back with great success. We were told that in the past Coho salmon had a 15% survival rate but up until a few years ago they were down around 2%. There has been a big turn around and they are now back up to that 15% number.
I'm thinking if there ever was a year to get out on the water and have some fun, this is it! I'm really looking forward to what 2014 may bring. I hope many of you can take advantage of this opportunity.
The Kitetail is a fishing lure guaranteed to snag you the "BIG" one!! This Drag-free Flasher can be used to attract all salt and fresh water game fish.
