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Boy ,am I late in reading this one! If anyone is interested in fishing the vedder on the July 1st openening,fish only under 50cm.s may be kept.I think you are able to keep 4 fish. If you check the reg.s on page 8, under definitions, a STEELHEAD..... a rainbow trout longer than 50 cm in waters where anadromous rainbow trout are found. At this time of the year, the vedder is a good place to introduce a young child to the sport but otherwise I think the river should be left alone. In the early part of the month the young fish are traveling down into the larger systems.By angling for them, like accidently goring them unnessarily on a large lure, we are only raising the mortality rate and overall reducing the no.s of beautiful mature fish that could be played &/or harvested in the near future. On a small scale this idea probably wouldn't make a difference, but on a larger scale who knows? As the years march on there is more fishing pressure put on this system. There are quite a few other fishing opportunities fairly close by where one can enjoy catching fish and knowing that they are not making an impact on it's system. Please respect these future silver bullets!
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Get your regulations straight. Between July 1st and April 30th you can keep 4 hatchery rainbows (clipped Rainbows). No where south of Jervis Inlet can you keep a wild trout/char in a stream unless its a hatchery clipped fish. In May when they release the Steelhead Smolts in the lower end which are Hatchery clipped obviously the 4 hatchery rainbows a day is closed to allow the smolts to escape without being touched targetted/killed (some of them are actually panfriers). If there are hatchery rainbows in the river any other time of the year other than May and June, they are what are called Residualized Steelhead Smolts, which is basically just a rainbow. This could be in part to the hatchery keeping a few Smolts too long and they become too imprinted in the watershed to want to seek out salt water, kind of like how if you keep a coho too long it has a more of a tendancy to Jack or return a year early. You want to WHACK these residualized rainbows (steelhead smolts) because all they are doing is competing with the Wild Steelhead smolts/parr which are moving down river as well. Now this brings up a question, do rainbows play a large part in watersheds where Steelhead or thought to predominate or is this dependant on location in the watershed? Also, since Steelhead have been proven to spawn above the lake, where to do their (wild) offspring rear? In the Lake? How close are the ancesterol ties between Rainbows and Steelhead in this watershed? Are they distinct in a watershed such as the Chilliwack or have some of the Steelhead parr residualized over time and formed a rainbow population? Lots of questions, maybe someone can produce a Study? Or some relevant info? I have also heard from a person who works at the Fraser Valley Trout hatchery that they have known for a few years that in one of the lakes they stock (I think GreenDrop or something like that) that they have known Rainbows will leave the lake and move into river. Now this may be a contributor to the rainbow fishery in the river in the Summer. This is also not a good thing in a system which hosts quite a good size Wild Steelhead run. If this stocking is somehow impacting the Wild Steelhead fry/parr/smolt component of the river, it should probably be ceased. What is more beneficial to the river and it's fishery, the Stocked rainbows, or the wild Steelhead and their returns? Lots of questions, hope someone can shine some relevant info.
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