I've done a little looking around to find this info without success. I'd be curious to know how many folks pay for the halibut catch card this year vs saltwater licenses overall. I realize this info will mean more later in the year as folks not fishing for halis will likely buy their licenses later. Does anyone know if these stats are posted somewhere on the WDFW site (or elsewhere)?

I can't imagine that data this current is available . Since people are still buying licenses up 'till opening day (and beyond) it's pretty unrealistic to expect anything like that this soon, and they prob. will not post that data later, either. Bob

Looks like 9,577 so far. That's about 13% of the cards issued.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Eric. Are you able to share where you found the info?

Well, sure! I'm the catch record card system manager at WDFW, so I can pull the numbers right off the database.

Eric works for WDFW and as I recall he deals with CRC data. Bottom line, he has ready access to emergent data - real time. I appreciate his being here and willing/able to respond to some of our inquiries.

Edit: See how quick he is to respond? Beat me to it. Thanks again Eric and maybe a tasking for you will be to crunch some numbers after the halibut season is complete to compare current year issuances to prior year data both in total numbers and as percentages of licenses sold.

It will be interesting to see how many halibut cards get issued, now that they cost extra!

I didn't know they were extra this year.

Thanks for posting data, it's good to know you are paying attention. Bob R

Ha! That's great, thanks! It would be interesting to know how it turns out at the end of the season...

Do you have a feel for how this compares to past years?

Let's see - last year at this time we had issued 44,049 halibut cards. 63% of the catch cards issued had halibut on them. So having to pay for them is definitely cutting down on the number issued.

It will really be helpful in estimating how many sportsmen are actually fishing halibut rather than how many were just carrying around a halibut punch card. Should prolong the season since it appears there really are a lot fewer guys actually fishing halibut then previous estimates.

Awesome. That should help with getting a more accurate estimation of the harvest!

Eric Kraig is one of the WDFW good guys....

He has always been very helpful, when asked, to email data on items I needed for NOF. Eric often emails with in minutes of asked for items.

Thanks, you have made this tax payer know that some employees of WDFW understand and do their job....

Does anyone have the formula and method that halibut catch is calculated from? The expansion factor over the creel reports seems astronomically high considering that blanket most of the high traffic boat launches with fish checkers. I would think that close to half the fish caught end up getting counted at the major ramps.