2012-13 Winter Mark-Selective Recreational Chinook Fisheries in Marine Areas 6, 7, 8-1, 8-2, 9, 10, 11 and 12

In recent years, abundant runs of hatchery Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) have been mixed with depressed runs of wild Chinook salmon in the marine environments of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound. Providing recreational anglers with opportunities to harvest abundant hatchery stocks while simultaneously protecting weaker, wild stocks has proven to be a significant conservation and management challenge. The combination of large-scale hatchery marking (i.e., fin clipping) programs and mark-selective harvest regulations makes it possible for anglers to pursue and harvest hatchery Chinook salmon while minimally impacting wild salmon populations. In such "mark-selective fisheries" (MSFs), anglers are generally allowed to retain adipose-fin clipped ("marked") hatchery fish and are required to release unharmed any unclipped ("unmarked", predominantly wild) salmon encountered¹.

Since the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) implemented the first marine mark-selective Chinook fisheries in Marine Catch Areas 5 and 6 (Strait of Juan de Fuca) in 2003 based on state-tribal agreements (Thiesfeld and Hagen-Breaux 2005a ,WDFW 2008a), mark-selective Chinook salmon fishing regulations have been implemented on a pilot basis in multiple Puget Sound Marine Catch Areas during both the summer and winter seasons. As of the close of the summer 2013 fishing season, pilot summer Chinook MSFs have occurred in Areas 5 and 6 for eleven consecutive seasons, in Areas 9, 10, 11, and 13 for seven consecutive seasons and in Area 12 for two consecutive seasons. Additionally, pilot winter Chinook MSFs have occurred in Areas 8-1 and 8-2 for eight consecutive seasons, in Areas 7, 9 and 10 for six consecutive seasons, in Areas 11 and 12 for four consecutive seasons and in Area 6 for one season².

During the 2012-13 winter season (October 2012 through April 2013), WDFW implemented eight pilot Chinook MSFs in Areas 6, 7, 8-1, 8-2, 9, 10, 11 and 12. The seasons in each of the areas were as follows:

• Area 6 from December 1, 2012 through April 10, 2013;
• Area 7 from December 1, 2012 through April 30, 2013;
• Areas 8-1 and 8-2 from November 1, 2012 through April 30, 2013;
• Area 9 from November 1-30, 2012 and January 16 ¡V April 15, 2013;
• Area 10 from October 1, 2012 through January 31, 2013;
• Area 11 from February 1,2013 through April 30, 2013; and
• Area 12 from October 1-December 31, 2012 and February 1 - April 30, 2013.

Consistent with the 2004 (and 2010 update) Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan (Puget Sound Indian Tribes and WDFW 2004 and 2010), a key goal of implementing each of these Chinook MSFs has been to provide meaningful opportunity to the recreational angling public while minimally impacting ESA-listed Puget Sound Chinook salmon.

Comprehensive Sampling and Monitoring Program
WDFW's Puget Sound Sampling Unit (PSSU) was tasked with implementing a comprehensive sampling and monitoring program in Areas 6, 7, 8-1, 8-2, 9,10,11 and 12 to collect the data needed to evaluate each pilot Chinook MSF and its impact on unmarked salmon. Through state-tribal agreement (WDFW and NWIFC 2012), we developed area-specific sampling plans consisting of several comprehensive and complementary sampling components, including dockside creel sampling, test fishing, on-water or aerial effort surveys, and angler-completed voluntary trip reports (VTRs). We tailored area-specific sampling plans so that we could reliably estimate the following critical parameters needed for evaluating MSFs:

i) the mark rate of the targeted Chinook population
ii) the total number of Chinook salmon harvested (by size [legal or sublegal] and mark-status [marked or unmarked] group)
iii) the total number of Chinook salmon released (by size and mark-status group)
iv) the coded-wire tag (CWT) and/or DNA-based stock composition of marked and unmarked Chinook mortalities³
v) the total mortality of marked and unmarked double index tag (DIT) CWT stocks

In addition, we acquired and analyzed relevant data characterizing other aspects of the pilot fisheries, including descriptors of fishing effort, fishing success (catch [landed Chinook] per unit effort), the length composition of encountered Chinook, and the overall intensity of our sampling efforts.

Reporting Efficiencies
In July 2010, technical staffs from the WDFW Puget Sound Sampling Unit, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC), and Puget Sound Treaty Tribes met to discuss potential reporting efficiencies in WDFW's Chinook MSF post-season reports. NWIFC and tribal representatives had initiated the idea for such a meeting, considering that WDFW had been submitting a separate post-season report for each area and season (since 2003) to the co-managers, resulting in redundancies between individual reports, particularly in the Methods section. Also, over the years we kept adding sections to the selective fishery annual reports, in response to individual tribal co-manager requests, and sustained those additions in each future report, resulting in ever-lengthening post-season reports. From both the WDFW and tribal technical perspectives, we needed to prioritize the most essential reporting elements and achieve efficiencies to streamline the selective fishery reporting work load.

Thus, at the July 2010 meeting the WDFW and tribal staffs worked on prioritizing the most essential elements (i.e., tables, figures, and appendices) needed in WDFW's annual post-season selective fishery reports in an effort to define reporting efficiencies. Based on these decisions (details available in a WDFW memo dated August 16, 2010 summarizing the July 2010 meeting), we began implementing reporting efficiencies starting with the 2009-10 winter Chinook MSF post-season report and continuing thereafter.

At the July 2010 meeting we also agreed that a key efficiency in the annual reporting process would be for WDFW staff to produce a centralized Methods Report. The Methods Report would be a stand-alone document that includes the details of each area¡¦s Chinook MSF study design (for both winter and summer fisheries), sampling procedures, data analysis methods, and all equations used to generate estimates and variances. Thus, we refer the reader to our Methods Report (WDFW 2012a) for detailed descriptions of the diverse study designs and protocols used to monitor and evaluate the Chinook MSFs in Areas 6, 7, 8-1, 8-2, 9, 10, 11, and 12 during winter 2012-13.

In the following pages, we report the results generated through our monitoring activities during the 2012-13 winter Chinook MSFs. We report results based on our more efficient reporting format agreed-to between state and tribal technical representatives, in which we focus on presenting data tables and figures rather than interpretive text (unless text is needed to specify noteworthy in-season adjustments or other circumstances unique to the particular season). We present 2012-13 winter Chinook MSF results in separate chapters (1 through 7) by area, and within each chapter the data are presented in a series of tables and figures generally according to the following sequence: i) estimates of fishery characteristics obtained from the dockside creel survey data, including catch and effort total estimates, Chinook length-frequency data, and CWT recovery results; ii) results from our recreational test fishery (where applicable); iii) results from our VTR collection efforts; iv) total mortality estimates of marked and unmarked DIT CWT stocks by hatchery and brood year; v) total fishery Chinook encounters and impacts-estimated based on creel survey and test fishery or VTR data-which we compare with pre-season expectations (based on Fishery Regulation Assessment Model [FRAM] predictions); vi) sample rate information based on dockside sampling of harvested Chinook; and vii) historical Chinook encounters estimates for each area's winter Chinook MSF.

¹The regulations specific to winter Chinook MSFs in Puget Sound Marine Catch Areas allowed for the retention of up to two legal-sized (>22 inches [56 cm]) marked Chinook salmon per day and required the immediate release of all unmarked or sublegal Chinook. Additionally, anglers were: i) required to use single-point, barbless hooks while fishing for salmon, ii) held to a combined (all salmon species) two-fish daily limit, and iii) held to a handling rule that prevented them from bringing unmarked and/or sublegal Chinook aboard their vessels.

²For information regarding effort, harvest and impacts estimates related to these fisheries, see the references listed at the end of this report, or visit: http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/search.php?Cat=Fishing / Shellfishing&SubCat=Selective Fishing. The 2013 summer mark-selective fisheries report is currently in preparation.

³ Though the necessary tissue samples have been collected, DNA-based estimates of stock composition are presently unavailable for Puget Sound/Strait of Juan de Fuca mark-selective fisheries. In the present report, methods for producing CWT-based (unexpanded) estimates of the stock composition of marked Chinook harvest are provided.