It's last call for West Coast fishermen who enjoyed a banner year of sockeye salmon harvesting.
The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans is shutting down the B.C. Fraser River fishery on Tuesday to make way for the endangered coho salmon.
Area director Barry Rosenberger says commercial fishermen are encouraged to climb aboard their gillnetters for one last opportunity to cast their nets during a 24-hour sockeye opening starting Monday at 7 a.m.
He says it's now time to protect the biodiversity of the B.C. Interior coho, which are only expected to number about 30,000 this year.
Some eight to 10 million wild sockeye will continue to swim up the Fraser River when the coho start their overlapping migration to their own spawning grounds.
By the time all sockeye fisheries close this year, Rosenberger estimates fishermen will have reeled in upwards of 12 million fish of the 34 million run.
