Area 4 Fishery updates

The DFO website is a little slower lately on uploading current information, so the results of the 17-18th Area 4 Skeena rivermouth gillnet opening are just posted.
Here they are:
July 17: 300 boats.........57,164 sockeye.......991 pink.......81 chinook
July18: 300 boats.........70,023 sockeye.......2235 pink......223 chinook

July 21: 296 boats.........54,389 sockeye.......3084 pink......162 chinook
3 day total of 181,576 sockeye
3 day total of 466 chinook
From our investigations it appears alot of steelhead were impacted in these openings. The average catch per boat of steelhead appears to be around 3 per day.
Now this doesnt sound like alot...but multiplied by 300 boats this equals 900 stld. per day.....times 3 days of openings= 2700 steelhead encountered and likely a high percentage of these succumbed to the experience of meeting a gillnet up close and personal.
Note that "Fishers are requested to release all live Chinook to the water with the least possible harm." But at $3.50 per lb. it appears chinook are looked on as just extra cash while fishing for sockeye....plus, it just really reflects the reality of a gillnet: not much is going to be able to be released alive after long sets.
In the early July 2 day 'targetted' chinook opening for gillnets the catch quota was 4000 chinook. In these 3 openings we are looking at they have killed 466 just as non-target bycatch.