I did see this from the WDFW site: Now my question is what did the test fishery show this year? Was the commercial session adjusted in response to the test fishery results?
The Apple Tree Cove test fishery results are reported on the WDFW web site. Look at
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/regs/commregs/salregs.htmThe results are two weeks behind, the chinook and coho bycatch numbers are interesting. There are links to the weekly fishery opening and closings.
This is all fantastic information and debate.
Back to my original question:
Does anyone know at what rate the commercial Chum fishery has increased in the last 5-10 years?
Has there been an increase in commercial licenses?
Have the license amounts remained the same, and commercials started fishing harder because of market demand?
Does anyone know what the total commercial take has been in pounds or number of fish for each year over the last 5-10 years?
Look at the WDFW web site mentioned in Dave's post,
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/chum/index.htmSome of the info you are looking for is on this site but it is only available up to 2002. Looking at the numbers I think the commercial chum fishery has been stable since chum hatcheries started up in the 1970's. Catch numbers go up and down, it appears that the sport fishery is the one that has increasing participants, though the sport catch is small compared to the commercial catch.
Market demand is a tricky question, chum roe has always had a big market in Japan. I suspect that the high prices this year reflect the weakness of the dollar against the yen. The Puget Sound gillnetters were recently complaining that after they had worked hard to develop a market for fresh caught "Keta" their fishery was closed. They wanted the state to increase their quota so they could deliver the promised fish.
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