Mike Scott,
Terrace B.C.
Dear Sir:
First I would like to thank all of the businesses in and around Terrace who allowed me to put my petitions against the new fishing regulation, Proposal 808, where people could access them and contribute their displeasure by adding a signature to the list.
Next I would like to thank each and every one of the more than 820 people who have shown their support in what I believe is a just cause. All these signatures have been sent to the fisheries department (Mark Beere) in the Smithers office of the Ministry of Environment.
Most people that I’ve spoken with were very upset, not only by the proposal itself but by the sneaky way that the DFO and others involved have tried to make sure that the new regulation was in place before the public was ever informed about it. They admit that they don’t know what the trout/char stocks are in most rivers and streams in Region 6. To my knowledge they’re basing this proposal on the word of a select few who seem to know far more than any of the rest of us about what’s the right way to do things.
There are those who will tell you that catch and release does not harm the fish. Well, in the years when I was allowed to harvest “one” steelhead, I fished in the Kalum river in the winter, and on at least three occasions found dead steelhead with flies in their mouths and others that looked like they should have been healthy fish. I can’t imagine what happened to them. An act of God perhaps made them too weak to make to the spawning grounds.
Maybe some of the people who think that catch and release is the only way to increase fish stocks should eat a few fish. After all, it is considered to be brain food.
They may think twice before walking all over the spawning beds in chest waders all day for the sheer pleasure of tiring a fish out and releasing it so that the next person can catch the same fish up or downstream from them, whichever way the fish has the strength to swim.
