The fishing and natural mortality of large, piscivorous Bull Trout and Rainbow Trout in Kootenay Lake, British Columbia (2008-2013).
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ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Estimates of fishing and natural mortality are important for understanding, and ultimately managing, commercial and recreational fisheries. High reward tags with fixed station acoustic telemetry provides a promising approach to monitoring mortality rates in large lake recreational fisheries. Kootenay Lake is a large lake which supports an important recreational fishery for large Bull Trout and Rainbow Trout. METHODS:Between 2008 and 2013, 88 large (?500 mm) Bull Trout and 149 large (?500 mm) Rainbow Trout were marked with an acoustic transmitter and/or high reward ($100) anchor tags in Kootenay Lake. The subsequent detections and angler recaptures were analysed using a Bayesian individual state-space Cormack-Jolly-Seber (CJS) survival model with indicator variable selection. RESULTS:The final CJS survival model estimated that the annual interval probability of being recaptured by an angler was 0.17 (95% CRI [0.11-0.23]) for Bull Trout and 0.14 (95% CRI [0.09-0.19]) for Rainbow Trout. The annual interval survival probability for Bull Trout was estimated to have declined from 0.91 (95% CRI [0.76-0.97]) in 2009 to just 0.46 (95% CRI [0.24-0.76]) in 2013. Rainbow Trout survival was most strongly affected by spawning. The annual interval survival probability was 0.77 (95% CRI [0.68-0.85]) for a non-spawning Rainbow Trout compared to 0.41 (95% CRI [0.30-0.53]) for a spawner. The probability of spawning increased with the fork length for both species and decreased over the course of the study for Rainbow Trout. DISCUSSION:Fishing mortality was relatively low and constant while natural mortality was relatively high and variable. The results indicate that angler effort is not the primary driver of short-term population fluctations in the Rainbow Trout abundance. Variation in the probability of Rainbow Trout spawning suggests that the spring escapement at the outflow of Trout Lake may be a less reliable index of abundance than previously assumed. Multi-species stock assessment models need to account for the fact that large Bull Trout are more abundant than large Rainbow Trout in Kootenay Lake.
SUBMITTER: Thorley JL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5228508 | biostudies-literature | 2017
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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