For years, resident anglers, non-resident anglers, guides, members of the Ministry of Environment’s Sport Fish Advisory Committee, members of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ Sport Fish Advisory Board, and local Fish and Game Clubs have told the Ministry of Environment that some waters in the Skeena River system have persistent steelhead angler-use issues — crowding, disproportionate numbers of non-resident anglers or guided anglers, lack of opportunities for resident anglers, illegal guiding, poor angler etiquette — leading to a degraded quality of angling experience.
In response to these concerns, the ministry implemented the Quality Waters Strategy on the Skeena River in 2006. The Quality Waters Strategy is a province-wide process that aims to maintain and improve the angling experiences offered in B.C.’s waters, by managing angler-use. The strategy includes a community engagement process, to help identify waters of concern that require new or revised regulations.
The end-product of the engagement process is an Angling Management Plan (AMP) that recommends revisions to current sport fishing regulations for steelhead angler-use issues on priority waters in the Skeena River watershed. The AMP does not address steelhead population status and conservation issues; those are addressed through other initiatives.
The Quality Waters Strategy is a stakeholder-driven process with a provincial Quality Waters Committee and a regional Skeena River committee (Regional Quality Waters Management Committee or Regional Committee) that both have representation from resident anglers, the guiding community, and the Ministry of Environment. The Regional Committee plays an important role in overseeing the Skeena Quality Waters Strategy.
Phase II Consultation Process
The Phase II consultation process began with the release of the draft Angling Management Plan for the Skeena Quality Waters Strategy on October 17, 2008 and ended on November 30, 2008.
The Phase II consultation process asked public and stakeholders the following questions:
- What do you like about the draft Angling Management Plan?
- What don’t you like about the draft plan?
- How should the plan be changed to better address the issues the community has raised?
The goal of the Phase II consultation process was to gather feedback on the draft Angling Management Plan. This feedback was collected for the stakeholder-based Working Groups to use in revising the draft plan to better reflect all community interests.
Revising the Draft Angling Management Plan
From March 2009 until June 2009, the stakeholder based Working Groups will be meeting to revise the draft Angling Management Plan using the Phase II Consultation Report. The revised Draft Angling Management Plan will be made public after the Working Groups have made their revisions. The revised draft plan will also be reviewed by the Regional Committee and the provincial Quality Waters Strategy committee. Then the draft Angling Management Plan will be forwarded to the Director of Fish and Wildlife for his consideration.
Phase I Consultation Process
From January to March 2008, the Phase I consultation process was held in the Skeena River watershed to identify concerns and issues from the public and stakeholders regarding sportfishing for steelhead. Participants in the consultation process were also invited to identify problems on area rivers and suggest potential solutions to address those problems. The results of that process were published in “Consultation Report Phase I (January – March 2008 Skeena Quality Waters Strategy” on March 31, 2008 by Alan Dolan & Associates.
Download the Phase I Consultation Report [PDF 182 pages/5.7MB]
Draft Angling Management Plan
From April to June 2008, three stakeholder-based Working Groups met to help develop a draft Angling Management Plan for the 13 priority waters of the Skeena River watershed. With the guidance of independent facilitators, they used the Phase I Consultation Report, angling use data, and their local knowledge and experience on the rivers, to develop the draft plans. The results of their volunteer efforts were published on October 17, 2008 in “Draft Angling Management Plan, Skeena Quality Waters Strategy” by
Alan Dolan & Associates.
Download the Draft Angling Management Plan
[PDF 114 pages/1.22MB]
Download the Executive Summary for the Draft Angling Management Plan
[PDF 16 pages/158KB]
Note that all references to the draft Angling Management Plan on the site will now go to here.
