Strawberry icefishing article in the deseret news

[grouser]

In tuesdays sports section of the deseret news they had a article about ice fishing at strawberry that also included some imformation about catch and release numbers, and month by month success. January and February are listed as the best months to fish (fish per hour), May and June the slowest. The census found that for every fish caught and kept, one was caught and released. The highest number of fish released was in January 65% and April 71%. The lower months were August 29%, and November 27%. Surf on over to desnews.com and check it out.

[BRY]

Does anyone know how they come up with these numbers? In the last five years I have never been approached by anyone wanting to know how many fish I have caught and kept or released. When and where do these counts take place?

[DrewTrout]

I can tell you more extensively than you would want to know how they run these things.

Simply put, techicians interview anglers. They do this between 3 and 4 days a week for the period of time in which the study is done. Furthermore, the day is broken town into three 8 hour study periods.

Techincians ask anglers several questions - including, but not limited to: When did you start fishing, What species are you fishing for, What angling method are you using, How many days per year do you fish here, How many have you caught today, and what are you using. Technicians also weigh and measure any kept fish.

In theory, technicians need to sample every type of angler. They don't sample all anglers - just a sample size. These anglers include shore anglers, ice fishermen, boat anglers, and kickboat anglers. However, some anglers are easier to reach than others. Specifically, shore anglers, boat anglers as they leave the water, and ice fishermen. Technicians can also use boats to actively search out anglers on the water (not many boat anglers are very receptive to this method though).

Anglers in kickboats are the hardest to track because they can put in virtually anywhere on the water. A technician may unknowingly bias a survey because they know this and so interview the easier anglers first and if they have time interview the more difficult to reach anglers. This bias can be nullified to an extent by just sheer numbers of interviews (larger study group) and the dynamics of the anglers (i.e. more shore or boat anglers than kickboat anglers).

Anyway, that is a creel survey in a nutshell. If you have any questions, fire away.

[LIV2FSH]

Who does this survey? And how is it funded?
Bruce

[Juke]

A good summary by Drew Trout. Another common way to bias the study is for the angler to overstate the number of fish he has caughtwhen being interviewed by the clerk. As we all know fishermen sometimes tend to stretchhhhhh the truth on some subjects.

[DrewTrout]

Bruce...

The studies that I was involved with at Willard Bay, Pineview Reservoir, Mantua Reservoir, the Great Salt Lake, and the Weber River were all carried out by me or another technician. All of the technicians in the Northern Region had a bachelor's degree. All of the degrees were in relevant fields (wildlife, fisheries, zoology, etc...). At the time, I was working on my master's.

The studies are funded by the organizations that manage the water. Federal waters: federal government, state waters: state government, private waters: private organizations. All of mine were funded by the DWR.

Juke...

You are right. The bias that I spoke of was by the technician. There are many biases that anglers can have. such as:

time spent fishing

number of fish caught

size of fish caught
(only kept fish were weighed and measured to avoid this bias)

species of fish caught - I had people calling walleye: pike; green sunfish: bluegill; small wiper: crappie; and large shad: wiper at Willard Bay. At pineview, black bullheads were channel catfish; and perch were walleye. On mantua, if they caught a small largemouth bass, they would often call it a smallmouth bass. On the Weber, trout species were always mixed up and whitefish were suckers.

the inevitable language barrier. I believe I encountered 6 different languages while I worked creels. Basically had to throw those surveys out if I couldn't muddle through them.

and finally, people too drunk or stoned to know what they were doing. Marijuana was the drug of choice and I saw a group of men lose three rods at Pineview because they were too drunk to realize that fish were pulling their rods in (I assume carp - they were using worms).

[DrewTrout]

I knew that would be the first question. That was all commercial brine shrimp industry stuff. If artemia is around, he can add his two cents.