The ocean fisheries have been sampled by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife since the early 1960’s. Creel data is used exclusively in the ocean areas to estimate Washington recreational catch and effort.
Sampling Methods
Field samplers are stationed in all major coastal access sites: Ilwaco, Chinook, Cape Disappointment State Park, Westport, La Push, and Neah Bay. Westport and Neah Bay are monitored from March through October; all other ports are monitored from May through September.
The OSP mainly uses a two-stage design for each port, with days constituting the primary sampling units (PSU) and boats within each sampled day as the secondary sampling units (SSU). Selection of days follows simple random procedures. Although sampling of boats is approximately systematic (e.g., every kth boat), the selection procedure is not exact and this stage is treated as simple random for estimation purposes. Each port is sampled a minimum of 4 to 5 days per week and days are stratified by weekend and weekday. Typically, all weekend days and holidays are sampled and the remaining available sampling effort within a port is randomly assigned to the weekdays. Daily estimates are expanded over days within strata to produce weekly, monthly and annual estimates. Variations on this theme are employed when sampling the land-based fishery at the Columbia River North jetty; here, weekdays and weekend days are not distinguished.
Effort is measured in units of boat-trips and angler-trips, and on sampled days, is measured throughout the entire period of boat activity, i.e., from the time when the first boat leaves a port until the last boat returns. On a given sampling day, the total number of boats that left a port is counted. During periods of high effort, effort is measured through an exit count, where all boats exiting a port are counted throughout daylight hours. In Westport, this method includes boats exiting from Ocean Shores and all Grays Harbor launching sites. In Neah Bay, this method includes boats launching from the Snow Creek resort.
During periods of low effort, effort is measured through an entrance count: a count of all boats entering that marina. During an entrance count, boats that exited from Ocean Shores and other Grays Harbor launching sites are excluded from the Westport effort count; in Neah Bay, entrance counts include boats exiting from the Snow Creek resort.
The catch per boat is sampled through intercept surveys. Returning boats are systematically sampled at a minimum target rate of 20% within each boat type (charter and private). Every kth boat to enter the harbor is included in the sample regardless of size, mooring location, trip type, etc. The size of the sample (leading to the calculation of m) depends on the projected effort and the number of available samplers. Overall, the sampling rate in each port in a year averages over 50% for charter boats and over 40% for private boats.
Through year 2000, data collected from each sampled boat trip include target species, area fished, number of anglers, landed catch by species, released salmon by species, and other biological data. Beginning in 2001, data collected include released yellow eye and canary rockfish. Beginning in 2002, releases of all marine fish by species were enumerated in the samples, and beginning in 2003, depth at which the majority of rockfish in the catch were hooked was added.