Editor, The Times:
Old enough to know what’s been lost in B.C. Salmon — yes, so am I, but from a different viewpoint.
I was a commercial fisherman for 40 years, so one can see that Stephen Hume and I have been at odds from time to time over the years.
However, having said this, I have a lot of respect for Stephen Hume. He was one of the first, if not the first, to see this holier than thou commercial sports fishery for what it really is — a strip-mining operation that is as “commercial” as the totally diminished commercial fishery is.
And Stephen Hume had the courage to take the sports fishery on — in the pages of the Vancouver Sun no less.
He also took on the Fraser Institute — a virtual no-no at the time. I still remember the picture of Conrad Black and his piggy little eyes and grimace that he called a grin, announcing that he had virtually tied the Pacific Press to the Fraser Institute. What was notable here was the lack of protest or even commentary.
Some or all of the above may just be the reason that Stephen Hume, one of the Sun’s best writers at the time, no longer works for Post Media. That and “Night of the Living Dead” Paul Godfrey’s wish to cookie-cutter all of Post Media’s papers.
Just a short time back there was a perfect example of the aforementioned holier-than-thou sports fishery when the demise of the Fraser-Thompson Steelhead was blamed on 30 hours of chum gillnetting broken up into three segments.
Ye Gods! Look in the mirror you wretched Pool Drifters, and other rod and reel characters who crowd the banks of the river, virtually torturing the steelhead to death.
As Stephen Hume points out, catch and release is an intellectual fraud. The mortality rate is roughly 30 per cent, not the five percent claimed by Fisheries and oceans.
Try to tell that to those greedy “all for ourselves” bunch from B.C. Wildlife Federation(BCWF). Note here, BCWF’s approach to gun control reads like it came from the National Rifle Association. Could it be that Wayne Lapierre has an honorary membership in the BCWF?
Old enough to know what’s lost in B.C.’s salmon.
It just may be goodbye salmon.
RIP
Dennis Peacock
Clearwater, B.C.
