A Busy Year for the FFSBC Operations Team
By Tim Yesaki
Vice-President, Operations, Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC
Within the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC, the largest division by far is Operations. It is responsible for overseeing our five major fish hatcheries, three sturgeon conservation facilities, a satellite fish-release facility, and nine egg-collecting stations. This complex department delivers stocking programs to over 800 public fisheries and conservation projects throughout the province.
Our division recently completed work on the foundations of the new Nechako White Sturgeon Conservation Centre, scheduled to open in spring 2014. Located in Vanderhoof, on the banks of the Nechako River, this new hatchery is part of the Nechako River White Sturgeon Recovery Initiative. Once it is up and running, the facility will hatch and release up to 12,000 juvenile sturgeon into the river each year – all part of an effort to rebuild the population, and restore the ability of sturgeon to spawn successfully in their natural habitat.
At our Kootenay (near Cranbrook) and Fraser Valley (in Abbotsford) trout hatcheries, we are planning large renovation projects aimed at saving water and energy, as well as operational dollars. Our goal is to upgrade our fish rearing containers at these facilities by converting the current rectangular tanks to round fibreglass tanks, complete with our own water-reuse technology. We have already completed similar energy conservation projects at our Vancouver Island (Duncan) and Clearwater trout hatcheries, and have another underway at our Summerland hatchery.
Fall is a particularly busy time of the year for the Operations Division as we gear up for the important task of capturing mature fish for their eggs and milt. Our staff will collect spawning kokanee in the east Kootenays, and brook trout from Aylmer Lake near Chase. The fertilized eggs will then be incubated at our trout hatcheries. To learn in which B.C. lakes these kokanee and brook trout will be released, visit our Future Fish Stocking Plans page.
Of course, all of our hatcheries will be actively stocking fish this fall. Our interior hatcheries will use trucks and helicopters for releases of smaller fish (fry). On Vancouver Island, we plan to stock 31 lakes, from Campbell River south to Port Renfrew and Victoria, with 63,000 ready-to-catch rainbows, starting at the end of September. For the Lower Mainland, we will stock almost 22,000 catchable rainbows into 11 lakes, from Harrison to Vancouver and north to Britannia, starting in early October.
If you want to find out how many catchable-sized trout will be stocked into your local lakes this autumn, visit our Recent Fish Releases page – and make sure to select “Fall Catchable” under Fish Life Stage. And keep an eye out for our Live Trout trucks on the roads this fall.
The Operations team really appreciates feedback on how our fish are doing after we stock them. The Green family fished Sheridan Lake this summer and caught “quite a few” of our fish by fishing just off the bottom during warm summer days. Their dad, Mark Green, told us that their largest rainbow was 7.5 pounds! If you want to share your fishing successes with us, or if you have any questions about the fish we produce, just go to gofishbc.com, and drop us an e-mail using the “Contact Us” option.