2015 Nootka / Esperanza fishing reports

[B "ALL GOOD NEWS"

This is a response to Area 25 Nootka/Esperanza Sports Fishery Advisory Committee (SFAC) Winter meeting minutes from Regional Biologist Rodger Dunlap -

You and committee members should be relieved to know that there was not a problem with lack of female Chinook at Conuma in 2014. I conducted an intensive mark-recapture experiment for the Pacific Salmon Commission, as I do at the Burman. The sex ratio from one early set is misleading and detection or capture probabilities vary between sexes. Females are more cautious and less catchable.

The Chinook escapement estimates of the Conuma River are below.. Early on in the season the detection probability (Capture Probability) for females was lower than for adult males: we marked 245 females to 800 males. Those figures would give the same wrong impression as the DFO single set information, but in the escapement they nearly even out. So it looks good in 2014 and for 2015. Good show of jacks. See my preliminary results in Power point attached with bias tests that I delivered to the PSC Sentinel Stocks Committee last week. It appears to be a solid estimate given absence of significant bias’. No ages or origins are available yet.

The gillnet, sport catch + escapement total to the in-season forecast (August week 1) of about 60,000 from CPUE that Diana Dobson produced. The totals below include brood stock and a few tagging morts from us.
Sex Females Males Adults Jacks
Total escapement
8,138 10,339 18,285 2,286

The actual percentage of females was 46% and males 54%. (8,139:10,339). When looking at the length distribution by sex, the numbers in that figure in the PPT are not adjusted (weighted) for abundance (about 250 females in sample v lengths from about 800 males).

I would expect decent Chinook fishing in 2015.

Sincerely,

Roger Dunlop, R.P.Bio.
Regional Biologist
][/B]
 
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