Fisheries

The Hupačasath First Nation fisheries department focuses on two main areas: A) coordinating “food fish” for community members each season and B) stock assessments to help track and monitor stocks for the benefit of future generations.

The department has expanded a lot since 2015. It has grow in size and responsibility offering more employment and stewardship for the Nation.

Learn more about Food Fish and Stock Assessments below.

Fish Day Information Page

Graham Murrell
Fisheries Manager / Biologist

“Managing fisheries to maximize fish for today and fish for tomorrow.”

Food Fish Programs:

Fish Day

  • Visit the Fish Day Page for updates, forms & announcements about Fish Day.
  • Behind the scenes we do not receive much notice and a lot has to happen before any kind of food fish can be distributed to the community. We give as much notice as possible and appreciate the understanding.
  • DESIGANATES: Make sure your designates are up to date. Email the Fisheries Manager to find out who your current designates are on file. Remember, anyone on your designates list can pick up your share.
  • You must tell your designate you want them to pick up your share and arrange it yourself. It is not our responsibility to manage or coordinate designates.

Round Table for Somass Fishery

  • All sectors meet weekly on Thursdays leading up to and during salmon season
  • Assess fishing plans
  • Coordinate between sectors how to manage the fishery
  • Only collaborative table of its kind in the province
  • At the THURSDAY meeting the weekly fishing decisions are made. Fishdays are often short notice as they can depend on the outcome of these meetings on Thursday

Stock Assessment Program:

Hupačasath First Nation works with DFO to help monitor the salmon stock assessments. The deliverables for these assessments keep the season very busy. Data is collected and shared with DFO to add to the bigger stock assessment picture that is reviewed at the Round Table Meetings throughout the season. Currently (2021) a 5-6 person crew works on these data projects and are mostly experienced Nation members.

Below are some of the ways that the salmon stocks are monitored, year-round.

The Fishways (Stamp, Sproat & Great Central)

  • These fishways are monitored from April to November each year.
  • They count the number of fish returning to spawn.
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Sproat Fish Cam Stamp River Fish Cam Great Central Fish Cam

Smolt Migration Studies

  • Smolt migration studies are completed each year in Sproat Lake & Great Central Lake
  • These studies track how many fish come back to help figure out how strong the run are each year.
  • Also Plankton sampling and other studies are done to help track / monitor the bigger picture of stock health

ATS Acoustic Trawl Surveys of GCL, Sproat

  • The fisheries department operates year-round. Work continues through the wintertime monitoring & assessing the stock numbers and health.
  • To help better estimate the number of fish in our lakes we conduct Acoustic Trawl Surveys.
  • This is a technical assessment that lets us figure out how many fish are in the area and then further analyzed to find the percentage of different species to calculate how many of species of interest (i.e. salmon) are in the area.