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Fraser River Sockeye Fisheries and Fisheries Management - Cohen ...

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indexes observed in previous years on that date going back to 1987 (when the gillnet <strong>and</strong>sampling protocol was st<strong>and</strong>ardized) (Appendix L). The slope of this regression line thenrepresents the average fish per index (FPI) across years for that day of the run. Thisrelationship improves slightly as the season progresses (Figure 36), but the uncertaintyaround the test fishery forecast is still considered too high to have influence onmanagement (T. Baker, pers. comm.). On average the forecast underestimates total runearly in the season, becomes the least biased around June 30, then begins tounderestimate again (Figure 36), indicating a time trend in the within-season FPI. Onecould have hopes of correcting the forecast based on this pattern, but it fluctuatessignificantly across years. The problems stem from measurement error in the index <strong>and</strong>from changes in the FPI both within season <strong>and</strong> annually.Several attempts have been made to improve the accuracy of the forecast byreconfiguring how the index is calculated from the catches, accounting for temperatureeffects, <strong>and</strong> by ad hoc methods for removing size selectivity (e.g., Fried 1985; Flynn <strong>and</strong>Hilborn 2004), but none have proved convincing enough to sway managers. However,recent genetic sampling at the Port Moller test fishery allows stock composition estimatesin-season <strong>and</strong> provides relative estimates of what is coming to each system in the comingdays (T. Baker, pers. comm.). The addition of stock composition estimates has increasedthe “confidence” of the test fishery information. How much the information is useddepends on how well Port Moller tracts the run during the first part of the season. Forinstance, if a spike in the Port Moller index is followed six days later by a spike ininshore catch, then more confidence is given to how well Port Moller is tracking the runfor that year; likewise, researchers look to see if stock composition estimates at PortMoller tract what is observed inshore. However, no statistical rigor is currently appliedto quantify these relationships.154

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