{"id":795733,"date":"2026-07-11T20:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795733\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T20:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T20:51:10","slug":"late-june-somass-river-sockeye-run-brings-abundance-to-first-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795733\/","title":{"rendered":"Late-June Somass River sockeye run brings abundance to First Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Port Alberni, BC \u2013 Canning jars are filled and freezers are stuffed with fresh\u00a0sockeye\u00a0salmon after a fortunate spell of cool weather sparked an abundant\u00a0late-June\u00a0return up the\u00a0Somass\u00a0River.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Tseshaht\u00a0First\u00a0Nation fisher Shae Doiron netted almost 1,000 fish in a single set with her father Chuck and two deckhands. The lifelong fisher said the\u00a0June\u00a028 catch was the best she\u2019s ever had.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chuck simply described the big pay day as \u201cparadise\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cGrateful and blessed,\u201d Shae adds. \u201cWe are taken care of for the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Located in Port Alberni, Tseshaht and Hupa\u010dasath\u00a0First\u00a0Nations\u00a0have an Economic Opportunity (EO) agreement with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)\u00a0to\u00a0gill net in the upper Alberni Inlet and the tidal portion of the\u00a0Somass\u00a0River. During the month of\u00a0June, DFO opened the EO fishery for two days at a time over the span of three weeks (June\u00a028\u00a0to\u00a0June\u00a030,\u00a0June\u00a021\u00a0to\u00a0June\u00a023 and\u00a0June\u00a014\u00a0to\u00a0June\u00a016).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shae slept in her truck at the Paper Mill Dam\u00a0to\u00a0ensure her boat was the\u00a0first\u00a0in line for the Sunday,\u00a0June\u00a028 opening.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat was a rush. It\u2019s all hit or miss too, when the fish show-up. The lifestyle of us waiting\u00a0to\u00a0get\u00a0to\u00a0the rush was almost like we did it back in the day without DFO telling us when\u00a0to\u00a0go,\u201d said Shae.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t like\u00a0to\u00a0fish anywhere else. Sometimes we wait a week\u00a0to\u00a0get a set like that,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe did not anticipate\u00a0to\u00a0catch that amount of fish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The spot, which is locally known as \u2018the dam\u2019, is dear\u00a0to\u00a0Shae. In 2022, a drug overdose claimed the life of her brother Charles. She shared that they scattered his ashes at the dam. Her\u00a0sockeye\u00a0net is also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hashilthsa.com\/news\/2025-02-20\/recovery-life-memory-my-brother-community-rallies-around-memory-those-lost-drug-use\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dedicated\u00a0to\u00a0his memory<\/a>\u00a0and overdose awareness with purple corks floating along the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year\u2019s pre-season forecast for the Great Central and Sproat Lake was ranked \u201chigh\u201d with an estimated 700,000\u00a0to\u00a01,000,000\u00a0sockeye\u00a0returning. The Hucuktlis Lake (formerly Henderson Lake)\u00a0sockeye\u00a0stock was forecast in the \u201clow\u201d zone with 15,000\u00a0to\u00a025,000 returning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With a low snow pack and hot weather, Graham Murrell, fisheries manager with the Hupa\u010dasath\u00a0First\u00a0Nation, says the two\u00a0nations\u00a0scaled back fishing efforts by \u201cabout half\u201d early in the season, knowing the drought conditions could reduce the flow of fish.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere were lots of sacrifices made by the\u00a0nations\u00a0among their fisheries. We wanted\u00a0to\u00a0make sure we were doing what we could,\u201d said Murrell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe were expecting the worst this year, but we have been saved with the cool weather. I\u2019d say we are in a good place right now. Lots of fish are moving. We are in a lot better place than most thought we would be at this time,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">DFO closed the EO fishery and hook and line food fishing at the Paper Mill Dam spot for a week from July 3\u00a0to\u00a0July 9 in effort\u00a0to\u00a0boost the escapement\u00a0to\u00a0Sproat Lake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe still have a big issue of\u00a0river\u00a0levels, but we are working the tools we have,\u201d said Murrell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He shared that Hupa\u010dasath worked with DFO\u00a0to\u00a0create a temporary wall at Stamp falls after infrastructure that pushes the water towards the fishway was knocked out over the winter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the end of the day on\u00a0June\u00a029, Murrell said that 35,289 adult\u00a0sockeye\u00a0had swam through the Sproat\u00a0River\u00a0fishway, while a total of 99,632 had made their way through the Stamp\u00a0River. He noted that the number of fish that pass through these rivers fluctuates daily.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shae said it\u2019s good move\u00a0to\u00a0close the Paper Mill Dam spot for a stint, even when it comes\u00a0to\u00a0hook and line fishing for community members.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere is absolutely nothing wrong with closing for a week,\u201d said Shae on July 2, a day before the closure came into effect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s not DFO saying (close it), it\u2019s the weather. It\u2019s lack of snow and overfishing. We get into this unhealthy mentality where we think we have\u00a0to\u00a0fight DFO. If the fish are struggling already, they are not going\u00a0to\u00a0get up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking into July and August, Murrell says the chinook salmon forecast is \u201chigh\u201d this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cHopefully we will have good chinook fishing as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">READ MORE:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Port Alberni, BC \u2013 Canning jars are filled and freezers are stuffed with fresh\u00a0sockeye\u00a0salmon after a fortunate spell&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-795733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}