Lodges, Businesses Call for Commercial Steelhead Closure

Photo: Tom Hart/Flickr

Lodges, outfitters, and local businesses in the Skeena region of British Columbia are calling on province authorities to close down the commercial steelhead fishing season. Jeff Blagden, with CFNR, wrote that the recent low returns of steelhead in the Skeena system have prompted this move from the angling and conservation community.

Commercial fishing operations are estimated to kill between 20-40 percent of all steelhead returning to the Skeena River, per Blagden’s reporting.

Concerns about steelhead are nothing new, especially in the Skeena River. Kaitlyn Bailey, in 2022, wrote a story that details much of the tension between locals and fisheries management officials within the Skeena area.

“A grassroots group of Smithers anglers are frustrated with the federal and provincial governments’ salmon and steelhead management plans, which they see as shortsighted and ineffective,” Baily wrote.

Longterm solutions do need to be found in order to save salmon and steelhead, which means everyone—commercial and recreational anglers alike—will have to make compromises. In addition, dams will need to be removed in order to allow for wild fish to reach historical spawning areas.