FYI, the below message was sent to Beezer from Bill Robinson.

Hello All-For those of you (and your friends) who are planning to fish
the Lk WA sockeye fishery on Saturday, I and the WDFW have a special
request to ask of you.

When (not if) you and your friends catch a sockeye, could you please
save the head (by freezing it) and collect the following information:
Date:
Area: South of I-90
I-90 to 520
North of 520
Sex: M/F
Fork length (in cm's if possible):


Due to the short opportunity to fish sockeye and the expected crowds of
anglers, the WDFW does not want to constrain launch and retrieval of
fishing boats at the major boat ramps by cleaning as many fish as
possible in order to retrieve the heads and data.

The goal is to collect approximately 3-4,000 heads and data.

It is important to recognize the need for this information. We need to
monitor the catch and evaluate the data for future fisheries. It is
crucial that the WDFW staff are able to extract the otilith bones from
the heads of the harvested sockeye. These fish ear bones hold the
lifehistory of the fish as it matures. The otiliths are much like the
rings of a tree. They hold a record of the life which the sockeye has
lived through.
We need to be able to have the otiliths "read" so that we can determine
which sockeye are the progeny of naturally spawned fish or from the
"interim" hatchery.

Some of you will recall that the sockeye fishery last year had an
approximate 25% contribution from the "interim" hatchery which allow
fishers to have the opportunity to catch these great eating fish.
More importantly, we are currently working to develop a sockeye hatchery
on the Cedar River which will have the potential of producing 34 million
sockeye fry. The information which will be collect as a result of your
efforts will help us to secure support for the building of the new
hatchery complex. This will help to ensure more frequent opportunities
to harvest Lk. WA sockeye in future years.
When you have frozen the heads and collected the data for us, please
contact either myself or WDFW biologist Steve Foley and we'll make
arrangements to collect your heads and data.

We really need your help with this request!

Please feel free to contact me at:

206-932-6959 or via email and we'll coordinate the collection.

In advance, thank you for your help with this request and great
fishing!!

Bill Robinson

fishadvocate@earthlink.net


"Public" Stakeholder
Seattle Public Utilities Cedar River HCP
Anadromous Fisheries Committee

Bump.