Mark-Recapture Estimate Of The Stock Abundance Of Atlantic Salmon Done During Catch-And-Release Fishing On The Ponoi River, Kola Peninsula, Russia

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In the beginning of the 90s recreational fishing based on catch-and-release began to develop on the Kola peninsula, this led to a reduction of quotas in commercial fishery for salmon at barrier fences and even further to a closure of commercial fishery on a number of rivers. A reduction of commercial harvesting of Atlantic salmon primarily with the purpose of conserving the stocks left the researchers with no handy way to assess reliably the abundance of salmon. On the Ponoi river, one of the largest rivers on the Kola peninsula (annual returns 25 000 – 30 000 salmon), mark-recapture estimate has been applied for stock assessment since 1994 after closure of commercial fishery at the barrier fence. Every year about 1500 salmon were tagged in recreational fishery based on catch-and-release. The exploitation rate varied from 12% to 19%. During the fishing season 5-8% of tagged salmon were recaptured which enabled to conduct separate estimates for summer and autumn run salmon. Application of the mark-recapture estimate during recreational fishing on salmon rivers may be restrained by the length of the fishing season, catch size and migrations of salmon within the river system.