(Image of dead salmon wasting away along shores of the Ganaraska river)
The fall salmon run has been a good one this year in Port Hope. Fish have been travelling through the town’s fish ladder by the hundreds, and hoards of fishermen, some with no common sense or respect, are right there to intercept them.
Our friend Chessy is a resident of Port Hope and an active participant in monitoring trout and salmon activity along the river. This year he’s noticing a rather disturbing trend…
Anglers just tossing their catch along the shore after stripping the fish clean of their eggs.
Not only are river anglers casting huge salmon aside like garbage, there are pop bottles, coffee cups and other sorts of litter strewn all along the river banks.
“People are catching salmon, gutting them and taking eggs and leaving the carcass behind” Said Chessy “My son kicked in 43 dead Chinooks back into the river that were gutted or dead from guys who don’t take the time to revive the fish”
“My son and i even pulled 2 fish from the local bargain shop parking lot that were gutted and placed in a pot hole so they would not be seen”
Now I ask you, is this the sort of behaviour anyone should be proud of??
Chessy goes on…
“The local parks department finally hauled several hundred pounds of fish guts to the dump from our local FREE fish cleaning station. Some of the fish were whole (12) that were stripped of eggs and left in the cleaning station for the town to clean up and get rid of…”
“It is so bad that our local police are now coming to calls and taking info to pass on or charge those when caught. We actually had people netting at 2 pm in the afternoon on a long week end with dozens of others fishing and watching them do it .
(This photo depicts someone, with blatant disregard for the law, netting salmon on the Ganny in broad daylight. Photo taken Wednesday at 2 :00 PM)
As Chessy puts it…”this just goes to show the mentality of some people ..”
Pretty sad if you ask me and not the sort of activity to shed any of us in a very good light.
Outdoorsguy
