The fishery management process that provides the opportunity for anglers to fish for anadromous species in californias central valley is dependent upon base monitoring activities that assess both…

The fishery management process that provides the opportunity for anglers to fish for anadromous species in californias central valley is dependent upon base monitoring activities that assess both the resources supporting the fisheries, and performance of the fisheries themselves. California department of fish and wildlife (cdfw) managers are dependent upon the information generated from monitoring to make sound decisions for setting seasons by time and place, establishing daily bag and possession limits, imposing gear restrictions, and making overall allocations of fishery resources. The fisheries are diverse. They include multi-million-dollar-per-year fisheries on native species such as chinook salmon, steelhead rainbow trout, and white sturgeon. The introduced striped bass fishery is typically the largest fishery in terms of total angler effort. The fisheries supported by introduced sunfishes range from consumptive panfish fisheries for species such as bluegill, to nationally recognized largemouth bass tournament fisheries. There are also more localized niche fisheries such as that for sacramento splittail, a california native species of special concern. Effective monitoring of the fisheries requires angler surveys that are statistically robust by being comprehensive in coverage both spatially and temporally. Angler surveys yield essential information about fishery performance, including estimates of angling effort, catch, and harvest, all on a species-specific basis. This information is used to assess fishery trends over time and space, both within and across fishing seasons. IT can also be used for designing regulations that balance utilization with conservation, including through the use of in-season closures.monitoring of these fisheries has occurred to varying degrees and using various approaches over time. Early monitoring focused on commercial fisheries in the BAY and delta portions of the system (clark 1929). Monitoring of river sport fisheries in the sacramento river system did not occur until the late 1940S with focus on the upper basin following the construction of shasta DAM (smith 1950). A more comprehensive angler survey was conducted by the cdfw during the mid-1960S (van woert 1965, 1966, 1968), and then again during the late 1980SEARLY 1990S (wixom ET AL. 1995) and late 1990S-early 2000S (e.g., murphy ET AL. 1999 massa and shroyer 2003). The cdfw resumed the angler survey in 2006 as a sport fish restoration act (sfra) funded project (titus 2007) that continues today as the central valley angler survey (titus ET AL. 2012). In california, as throughout the pacific northwest, anadromous fishery resources are managed in part through the implementation of broadscale marking and tagging programs. These programs facilitate stock management, allow for selective harvest, and provide the basis for assessing various attributes of the exploited resource, including age and growth, fishery impacts on population structure, and homing fidelity relative to management of genetic resources. In the central valley, marking and tagging programs are focused on hatchery-produced chinook salmon and steelhead rainbow trout, and include the constant fractional marking program in which 25% ( 8 million) of annual fall-run chinook salmon hatchery production is adipose-FIN clipped and coded-wire tagged. Californias coded-wire tag program is coordinated on a statewide basis. Monitoring adult abundance of target species is also an essential fishery management element in central valley rivers and streams. Maintaining a pulse on abundance of key species, such as chinook salmon and steelhead, is necessary for optimizing angling opportunities and for regulating harvest of these species. Monitoring adult abundance also provides the basis for making pre-season forecasts of future abundance, which is in turn used to inform anglers of predicted fishery conditions.