“The fish are starting to come in and there’s lots on the way,” said skipper Jim Smith, on board his gillnet vessel at Steveston Wharf Tuesday morning.
Fishers like Smith were selling whole sockeye salmon for $20 after a three-hour commercial opening on the Fraser River Monday afternoon.
By Monday evening, independent wholesale buyer Mike Rekis had hauled in about 50,000 pounds of salmon on the dock adjacent to Garry Point Park. Rekis was buying fish for $1.50 per pound.
“This is just a start but it’s only going to get better,” said Rekis, whose fish will end up in stores and markets with a mark-up.
The 2014 sockeye salmon run is expected to be a large one, although the Department of Fisheries and Oceans still hasn’t made an official estimate; it could be as low as seven million or as high as 73 million fish returning from the immaculate 30 million run in 2010.
At about $3-4 per pound at the wharf, fishers say the public is getting a good bargain.
“You can’ beat this,” said gillnetter Randy Fraser, who sold six fish in a matter of minutes while speaking to the Richmond News.
Upon request, fishers will take the heads off as well as allow you to choose a female (with eggs) or male fish.
Fraser said as the run increases and there are more commercial openings he expects wholesalers —namely the Canadian Fishing Company, which owns a de facto monopoly on the purchasing — to lower their buying price to about $1 per pound.
Fraser said boats took in, on average, about 300 fish each. He said many hauled in fewer than his 350 and one boat he knew of took in close to 600.
During the opening the Fraser River was littered with boats. The ones up river fared worse as the salmon appeared to be acclimating themselves to the fresh water near the river’s mouth, said Smith.
Read about what it takes for gillnetters to prep for a sockeye salmon run in 2014.
