Enhanced Sampling of the Washington Coast Recreational Groundfish Fishery 2014-2017

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) supports groundfish stock assessment and management of fisheries through several interrelated groups that collect and process biological and catch data. The coastal section of the WDFW Marine Fish Science (MFS) group conducts coastwide commercial fishery sampling, research including fishery independent at-sea surveys and supplementary recreational fishery sampling at three major coastal ports: Westport, La Push and Neah Bay. From 2014 to 2017, the coastal MFS recreational groundfish sampling program (RGSP) had two major objectives. The primary objective was to scan recreational groundfish catch to recover tag information and biological data from fish tagged and released during at-sea surveys. In addition to tag recovery operations, the RGSP directly supported research and stock assessment by collecting biological data from untagged recreationally caught groundfish species. This biological information enhances data collection efforts of the WDFW Ocean Sampling Program which is tasked primarily with generating catch estimates for all recreationally targeted species, e.g., salmon and groundfish, for the Washington coast. This report provides a characterization of Washington’s coastal groundfish recreational fishery and summarizes the RGSP sampling operations from 2014 through 2017 including data collected, sampling methods and ongoing procedural development.