Volunteer Angler Diary Program

[Don Wittenberger]

WDFW Warmwater Fisheries has a program that collects fishing data from anglers. They send you a little book with blank pages in it, in which you record information. The data they're seeking consists of:

The date you fished.
The name of the lake where you fished.
The species you fished for.
How many hours you fished.
The length of each fish caught, and whether you released it.
Comments (optional).

WDFW has only a couple hundred people participating right now, and only a couple of muskie fishermen. Their data on tiger muskies, in particular, is sparse and they really need more muskie angler volunteers in order to build a representative data base. For the last couple years, a large part of their tiger musky data has come from me, and I've concentrated my efforts on only one of the seven tiger muskie lakes during that period.

If you volunteer, they will send you a small looseleaf book with blank pages which you can keep in your tackle box or a boat storage locker. I write down the information about each fish I catch right after releasing it. Under the "comments" section, I note the weather conditions and surface water temperature.

It's a little bit of work, but not overly onerous, and providing these data to the fisheries managers will help them make more accurate assessments of how productive our muskie fishery is and possibly suggest ways to manage it better, which helps us as anglers. So, I'm posting this comment to encourage more of you to participate in this worthy program.

http://wdfw.wa.gov/fish/warmwater/volunteer.htm

[Don Wittenberger]

I forgot to mention -- the way you report the data is, once a year, in the winter off-season, you mail the completed diary pages back to WDFW in a postage prepaid envelope they provide, and they mail you a new set of blank pages.

I report not only my muskie fishing days, but all my fishing, including walleyes and bass.

[dlt074]

i was meaning to sign up for this at the tournament, but for some reason never made it over to talk with them.

i've just signed up!

[muskie guy]

It's also nice to get a letter from them telling you some of the progress they are making. I send mine in each month and they send back blank pages quickly. Put your phone number and email address on there too. A very worthy program indeed.

[Bill G]

Well guys I have been doing the Tigers on Tapps and I know one other fisherman is a participant on Tapps also.
The paper work is really easy and worth while to you because it kind of forces you to keep records to develop your own data base.
I have information on water temps, sky info, water clarity, and air temp. This year I will be able to add B pressure. Oh yes and who was with me.
Bill