Salmon bycatch monitoring and sampling results for the Pacific Region 2024/25 groundfish trawl fishery

Beginning fall 2022, new monitoring and retention requirements for salmon bycatch were introduced in the Pacific Region Option A groundfish trawl fishery to improve the accuracy of catch estimates and collect information on Chinook salmon stock composition and coded wire tags (CWT). This report describes results from the enhanced salmon bycatch monitoring program for the 2024/25 groundfish fishery and 2024 calendar year, including salmon bycatch by species, stock composition, CWT indicator stock catches, and age composition of Chinook salmon bycatch. The 2024/25 fishery was the first year under a salmon bycatch management plan that introduced a fleet-wide annual bycatch cap of 9,500 Chinook salmon. There was an estimated total of 7,527 salmon caught in the 2024/25 groundfish fishery including 7,040 Chinook salmon. CWT and genetic stock composition estimates indicate that most bycatch of Canadian origin Chinook salmon was from the Fraser Fall 4(1) stock management unit (78%), which includes CWT exploitation rate indicator stocks from the Chilliwack and Harrison Rivers.