Evaluation of hook size in recreational salmon troll fisheries in the marine waters of Washington state

Description

These data were collected for a study assessing the fishing performance of small (1/0) and large (6/0) hooks in recreational salmon trolling. Factors of interest in the study were drop-off rates; frequency of hooking body regions resulting in low, intermediary, and high risk of mortality using published mortality rates from Wertheimer et al. (1989); and average size of salmon caught. The goal of the study was to assess whether hook size regulations for salmon troll fishing would improve survival of hooked and released salmon. These data were assessed by Scordino et al. and a manuscript was submitted to PeerJ during October 2023.

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Data for this study were collected by monitoring recreational salmon troll fishing in northwest Washington during the salmon fishing season of June-September during 2023. We tested for differences in hooking injury by hook size for small (1/0) hooks and large (6/0) hooks; both hooks were manufactured by Gamakatsu. The hooks were assembled with a hoochie lure such that the bend of the hook aligned with the tail end of the hoochie for both hook sizes by placing beads as spacers. The lures attached to a salmon flasher and were trolled at slow speeds. For every salmon caught we recorded which body region the salmon was hooked using body regions defined by Wertheimer et al. (1989). The attached figure to this posting was used as our field guide for documenting the body region hooked. We also recorded whether or not the salmon was bleeding; we only recorded “yes” for bleeding if the fish was steadily bleeding and “no” if there was no blood or just small amounts of blood. The salmon length and species were then recorded. We also documented when we hooked and lost a fish noting that if we knew the fish was not a salmon then it was not recorded.

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