I was just re-reading the regs again for Area 5 & 6, the following sentence caught my eye:

Area 5 and 6 season quota of 3,500 "landed" chinook; afterwards, release chinook.

What is considered landed? Is it a legal fish that hits the deck of the boat? Is it a native/hatchery fish that is released along side of the boat? I'm curious to hear WDFW definition of landed. I'll try and find out.

I know in the past when the fish checkers at the dock ask you how you did and you tell them, for example, you caught 7 and only kept 4. They counted 7 against the quota.

Kev

Don't get your "landing" net near the nates.

Kev,

I'm not sure what the checkers were talking about, but when it comes to salmon quotas, a "landing" is a fish that is actually brought to shore and sold or brought home.

If they counted released fish, how could they get an accurate count? I know my report would be "X number of fish landed and kept, and none caught and released" if a released fish counted against my, or our collective, limit.

Fish on...

Todd.

P.S. When I see fish tallies in the paper, they usually post how many fish were caught, how many were kept, and how many were released. Counting all the fish handled may be for informational purposes, but for quota purposes, I'm pretty sure that fish kept are all that count.

Hey Todd, good to hear from you (had a feeling you'd chime in on this one! )
I totally agree, that was my point. In areas that have quotas such as area 5, in the past when asked how many were caught, I always tell them how many were kept.
I've had more than one checker tell me they count all fish C&R'd & retained against the quota, if it's reported by the fisherman at the dock. Kinda screwy, if you ask me and I always voiced my opinion that it didn't make sense to count fish that way for the same reasons you pointed out.
To me a fish landed is a fish kept and like you said "actually brought to shore and sold or brought home". I've e-mailed WDFW and will post the reply when/if I get one.

Not trying to start a controversy, just want a clear definition when I hit the water.

Looking forward to this summers seasons,


Kev

Todd/Kev-
In this case landed means fish brought to the dock. The 3,500 chinook quota means that many can be kept. If the mark rate (% clipped) is 25% then to "land" 3,500 fish 10,500 will be caught and released (hopefully successfully).

Todd -
Given your concern for wild fish and concerns about past fisheries management I am very surprised that you are advocating the mis-reporting of encounters (fish caught and released). Two issues

- if anglers insist on giving the managers poor information the managers will have little chance of managing correctly -crappy information equals crappy management.

-more importantly success of selective fisheries means taking care of the wild fish (protecting them to spawn). If a fishery is killing too many are you advocating that is OK (don't report encounters) as long as fishing continues?

I realize that many apply a different conservation standards to steelhead than salmon however I find you statement completely counter to the principles of wild fish protection and management and sincerely hope that it is only yours and not representative of those in WSC.

Tight lines
Smalma

I would also echo Smalma concerns. I trust that Todd simply misstated his position as I know he would never support intentional misreporting regardless of the species.

Why do people continue to feel that telling the truth is not in their best interest and that telling a lie is going to help them in some way?

Greed, that's why.

As if there is not already enough greed and self interest out there, how is more going to benefit the resource and/or our fishing opportunities? If any of us are going to hold others to a higher standard regarding such issues dear to our hearts like poaching, snagging, allocations, statistical reporting, nets, indians, commercials, bonkers, enforcement, resource management, habitat protection and enhancement, nates, brats, zippers, dams and the rest of the unending list of gripes, then stand up, be strong and tell the truth. Only when we can begin to admit our share in this mess, can we begin to make a difference in what is happening to the resource.

Our part is simple and that is to answer honestly the questions we are asked as fisherman. Short of that, say nothing at all. To the misguided: Thanks, but don't do the rest of us any favors by your deception, cause your dishonesty in the small things will only undermine the other contributions you have to make. And frankly, we're going to need more than just a few good MEN to resolve the issues that loom before us.

Thanks for listening.

raw thumbs

Mooch Well said.

Beautiful....another thread gone bad, a simple question asked and the soap boxes come out.

I don't understand the controversy. What I hear Todd say was that IF X, THEN Y, knowing that X was not the case, so neither is Y.

On the other hand, if the regs. say a fish released is a fish caught, you count it. This isn't the case here, as I understand it. Right?

Sorry for the confusion about my post...didn't mean to get anybody too uptight!

My post above was meant only to refer to counting legal (hatchery fish of sufficient size to keep) against the quota, even if they are released.

If the quota is being controlled by a reported wild fish encounter rate, rather than a harvest rate (something I've never heard of in sportfishing due to the impossibility of getting much data at all, much less accurate data), then, of course, I would encourage everyone to accurately report everything caught.

If wild fish encounters were the limiting factor in a sport season, the seasons are usually set by a time limit with an estimated success rate, or a wild/hatchery fish ratio to make the count.

For example, if the allowable of encounter of wild fish is 1500 fish, and wild fish make up, say, 33% of the entire run, then wild fish encounters would be tallied by multiplying the harvested hatchery fish by .5 (ration of 2:1), not by counting the actual wild encounters. When 3000 hatchery fish have been harvested, then the quota for wild fish encounters has been met.

By the way, I had an e-mail forwarded to me from WDFW enforcement stating that "landed" means harvested, as I initially stated above.

Again, sorry for the confusion. I think my record here and elsewhere stands for itself on my views on conservation of wild fish stocks, so I'm not going to bother defending myself on that issue.

Fish on...

Todd.

The area 5&6 Chinook opening in July has a combined quota of 3,500 "landed" or harvested hatchery (fin clipped) Chinook. There is also inserted a bold new rule to leave the wild fish in the water until released. It is going to be up to the sports community to be good stewards of this opportunity and release the wild fish unharmed without netting them and bringing them into the boat. Serious enforcement will be on hand to make sure this experiment works.

As far as how released wild fish enter into the equation, there is a mortality percentage that WDFW uses to determine the impact of the fishery on the wild stocks. They are saying 20% of the fish that we catch and release will die. That does not mean that those fish will count against the quota of 3,500 but it does mean that a factor has already been included in their model when they decided on the length of the season, the area and the "quota".

As far as reporting goes WDFW has a new log that is available so we can keep an accurate record of the fish we catch and release and those we catch and keep. WDFW personnel have explained this to me and I like the idea. This log is available in tablet form so you can keep it on board and fill it out on every trip. You can keep it or hand it to the checker at the ramp and walk away without answering any questions. The goal of this is to get accurate numbers for released fish, not to penalize you or cut back your opportunities even more. On the contrary, it will lead to realistic mortality models and perhaps longer seasons. This is because they think, and I agree, that we all exaggerate the number of fish we release when salmon fishing. Think about it. I did when a WDFW employee explained it to me . He pointed out that when asked " did you release any fish?" "Yes"...."How many"?...Ohhhhhh I don't know ...12??? 15??? "You know there's alot of shakers out there".....Most likely we only really released 4 or 5 but we said 12...I think they are absolutely right. So why not keep a log? Check it out where you buy your license or online. Try it out. It might just be a good thing. The main thing is not to lie or falsify what you catch.

Remember that when crab catches were reported on a catch record card for the first time many complained but in the end it was discovered that the sports catch was much , much smaller than originaly thought based on the old way of determining the scope of the sports catch which was simply count the red and white buoys and multiply times a factor #.

Be honest and release wild fish in the water unharmed. You'll be glad you did.

Todd -
Every sport salmon season in the state that might encounter a Puget Sound wild chinook (ESA listed) is potentionally limited by the allowable impacts to that stock. Those impacts (dead fish) are estimated (modeled) to include the directed take (those harvested) as well as the indirect take (hooking mortality, net drop out, etc.). For sport fisheries the indirect take is the product of the number of encounters times the hooking mortality (for chinook marine fisheries that is ususally between 10 and 20%).

As you know there are a number of parties who would prefer that fishing impacts on listed chinook were held to zero. A zero imapct standard would mean no salmon fishing (hatchery or wild chinook, coho, pink, etc) in any marine waters of the the state as well the rivers of Puget Sound. The future of those fisheries is dependent on the co-managers successfully continuing to demostrate that the impacts to listed stocks under their Fisheries Management Plan doesn't substantially jeopardize the recovery of those stocks.

The deliberate or unwilling sabotage of the data quality by sport anglers could limit the utility of slective fisheries such as this year's area 5/6 chinook fishery jeopardizing this or other future fisheries. Perhaps you can see why your unfortunate choice of words raised a red-flag.

Kev -
Hopefully you no longer consider this detour to your question irrelevant.

Tight lines
Smalma

I now know where to go to get my questions answered about rules and regulations, to the source, not here.

Grandpa thanks for the info, I keep a log on my boat and will look into the WDFW log.

Now I'm really looking forward to getting out on the water, hopefully some of you are as well...

Smalma,

You know that I know those things...and you also know that you're preaching to the choir when you say them to me.

Nothing that I have stated in this thread has to do with that stuff...except to discuss how they calculate the impacts on the ESA listed stocks.

Here are the options I can see:

An allowable impact is set...how is it measured in season?

1. Unclipped fish are released, and reported as such at the fish checking stations. Whatever number is reported is the number that is used.

This one doesn't work for me...there's really no way to test the validity of what anglers are, or are not, reporting.

2. Hatchery fish are checked at the stations. Since there is a known percentage of hatchery fish vs. wild fish around, you can use the number of checked hatchery fish to calculate the wild fish encounters.

This works much better for me. First, the fish are right there to be checked and counted. Second, reported and verified catches can be later compared to punchcard reports to calculate the percentage of fish that are being reported at the check stations.

You know the number of fish checked, you can extrapolate that to the amount of fish harvested (I'll bet WDFW already has the formula for this), then calculate the ESA encounter rate from this number.

Once you have the encounter rate, then you use whatever mortality rate has been established for the particular fishery, and there's the amount of ESA listed fish that are dead.

My initial response to this thread was wondering why in the heck they would 1. worry about counting released fish in the first place (NOT that the number doesn't matter, but how to properly calculate it), and 2. why a released fish would count against the fishery's quota, unless someone reported that they released a dead one (there was no mention of using the number of released fish in any sort of formula.."...you caught 7, and only kept four. They counted 7 against the quota".)

Fish on...

Todd.

P.S. Sorry Kevin. Talk to you later.

Todd -
Don't think that we are communicating very well.

The point in monitoring fisheries can be two fold. One can be for in-season management decisions (determining when allocation or impacts are reached) as you suggest . The second and perhaps more important is to collect the information (encounter rates, mark ratios, stock composition etc) to improve the information for management in up coming seasons.

As many have pointed out in the past fisheries management in this state can be improved (how is that for an understatement). Doing so involves admitting that past mistakes have been made (largely done) and then trying to improve upon past management. In part success in that effort depends upon improving the information used in management. Anglers can decide on whether to be an active particpant or an obstacle in that process.

Tight lines
Smalma

Todd, what's the record for "number of times of being dixie chicked" by Smalma in one thread?

Smalma,

I'll agree we're not communicating very well...but it's getting better as this thread ages!

I'm aware of and agree with the two different reasons for in season monitoring. I think, however, that the first is covered pretty well by this thread, and the second is not really related to this thread at all.

It's one thing to monitor catch and encounter rates to check your preseason prediction about run size and composition, but it's quite another to monitor them as in season checks on the season length or quota.

If you want to collect data, which for quota purposes is almost unusable, for the purpose of checking your preseason predictions, then I think that's a grand idea. I'm all for it, especially if it can help us to better predict what run size and composition will be.

It seems to me, though, that this thread was discussing using it for quota purposes, rather than informational purposes. In my very first post on this thread I noted that I thought the information we were talking about was used just for informational purposes, such as part two of the twofold reasons for monitoring that you noted above.

Unless I'm mistaken, we're getting closer to agreeing than not, which is a far cry from where our poor communication started on this thread

I also think this thread has about run its course

But...I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time :p

Fish on...

Todd

I've noticed the last couple of times I got interviewed by the fish checker on the Columbia that they no longer asked how many fish I released. Last time I asked why, as I did catch a wild one and at least wanted to brag about it, and was told that they already knew the percentage of marked/unmarked and extrapolated the numbers of unmarked fish released from the number of marked fish landed. So it sounds like the concern that some may have that WDFW is somehow using data on released fish against us is unfounded, and that Smalma is correct in his description of how data on released fish is calculated. So whether you want to report accurate numbers of fish released or not is immaterial, as is the need to get your panties in a bunch about this issue

While this thread is obviously deader than a doornail, I can't resist..

So here's a question for Mooch and the rest of you on such high moral ground...when you're fishing in the salt do you quit fishing after you have caught and released whatever the quota is for the day?

Say you're at Seiku in September and the first four fish you hook are nates, which you of course carefully release. Do you then head back to the dock? By your high standards staying out there fishing would be mighty greedy.

B