2016 Ocean Selective Fishery Sampling Report

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) adopted 2016 recreational and commercial troll fisheries for all salmon species in the area between Cape Falcon, Oregon and the U.S./Canada border. Council-area fisheries were adopted based on assumptions regarding coho and Chinook abundance, distribution of stocks, Chinook age class distributions, coho mark rates, compliance with selective fishery regulations, and incidental mortality.

Concern over extremely low Coastal and Puget Sound coho returns in 2015 and low coho run size forecasts for 2016 drove the process of planning 2016 ocean fisheries. All ocean fisheries were structured to minimize impacts on Coastal and Puget Sound coho.

The PFMC Salmon Advisory Subpanel (SAS) did not recommend, nor did the PFMC adopt, an ocean recreational Chinook mark-selective fishery (MSF) in 2016. This fishery has occurred in Catch Record Card (CRC) Areas 1 through 4 for the past six years, but was eliminated in 2016 to minimize coho encounters.

A recreational MSF for coho was adopted only in the area between Leadbetter Point, WA and Cape Falcon, OR (CRC Area 1) in 2016. All other recreational fisheries were structured as Chinook-directed non-selective fisheries limited to retention of all species except coho. The non-Treaty commercial troll fishery also prohibited retention of coho in all areas north of Cape Falcon.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (WDFW’s) Ocean Sampling Program (OSP) continued its intensive monitoring program in all ocean ports during the ocean fisheries to collect data to estimate key parameters characterizing the fisheries and their impacts on unmarked and other non-retained salmon. Sampling activities included on-water observation, a Voluntary Trip Report (VTR) system, and dockside creel sampling. Among other parameters, sampling activities emphasized data collection needs for the estimation of: i) the mark rate in mark-selective fisheries, ii) the total number of Chinook and coho harvested by mark-status, including an estimate of angler compliance rate with coho MSF regulations, iii) the total number of Chinook and coho released (by size/mark-status), iv) the coded-wire tag (CWT) stock composition of landed Chinook and coho, and v) the total mortality of marked and unmarked coho.

This report focuses mainly on the limited 2016 coho mark-selective ocean fishery. Catch and bycatch statistics for the 2016 non-selective fisheries (Chinook-directed) are available in the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s Review of 2016 Ocean Salmon Fisheries (http://www.pcouncil.org/salmon/stock-assessment-and-fishery-evaluation-safe-documents/).