Recreational salmon anglers battle in bloody brawl on banks of B.C.’s Fraser River

A rare recreational fishing opportunity for anglers on the Fraser River wrapped up over the weekend but not before a bloody brawl broke out in Chilliwack.

A rare opportunity for recreational fishers to cast on B.C.’s Fraser River wrapped up on Labour Day weekend – but not before it was marred by a bloody brawl in Chilliwack on Sunday.

A witness who submitted video of the altercation to CTV News said it began with an argument about one man accusing another of taking his pink salmon.

The minute-long edited video, which does not capture the beginning of the fight, starts with two men grappling in ankle-deep water at the river’s edge.

At that point, one of the men is already bleeding from the face.

Seconds into the video, those two combatants separate – but then the man with the bloody face quickly turns to engage another man, grabbing him and dragging him down on the rocky riverbank.

As the two men struggle, the man with the bloody face winds up pinned to the ground as the other man punches him several times.

Despite bleeding profusely from the bridge of the nose, the man does not appear ready to stop fighting, and after getting back on his feet he removes his jacket and moves back towards other fishers.

The video then cuts to a group of five different men pushing and shoving as others yell for them to break it up.

Mike Christie, a guide and owner of Full Throttle Fishing Adventures, saw the video and calls it an unfortunate end to what was otherwise a very bountiful couple of weeks for recreational anglers.

“You know, there’s so many fish to go around,” Christie said in an interview with CTV News.

“The fact that we haven’t had an opening like this in so many years … to spoil it over a disagreement and an argument like that is just, it’s really disappointing.”

The recreational fishery ran from Aug. 22 to Sept. 1 and allowed licensed anglers to catch up to two sockeye and four pink salmon each per day.

This year’s Fraser River sockeye run vastly exceeded expectations, with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans revising its early forecast from 2.9 million returning fish to close to 10 million.

That allowed the DFO to provide sockeye fishing openings for First Nations, commercial fishers and recreational anglers.

In an email, Chilliwack RCMP said Sunday’s bloody brawl had not been reported to police.