You can help Lees Ferry!
With a new citizen science project that will help biologists understand the Lees Ferry Fishery, and work to maintain a blue ribbon rainbow fishery!
WANTED: The Arizona Game & Fish Department (AZGFD) seeks anglers to collect length measurements on fish they and their clients catch throughout Lees Ferry. We are especially interested in guides and anglers that will be out on the river on weekday and weekend days, as well as guides and anglers who are on the river throughout the year (including winter).
BACKGROUND: AZGFD manages the Lees Ferry fishery with the National Park Service. Our goals include:
▪ A size structure indicative of a stable rainbow trout population (20% – 50% fish < 6” in length)
▪ An angler catch rate of at least 1 trout per hour ≥ 14” in length
▪ An angler catch rate of at least 0.1 trout per hour ≥ 20” in length
We are able to learn about size and numbers of fish in the river from our electrofishing surveys, and can monitor angler catch rates with our creel surveys. However, we don’t know the sizes of fish anglers catch, which makes it difficult to know if we are meeting our goals for a quality rainbow trout fishery. That’s where you can help!
PURPOSE: We are expanding our data collection to collect length information from anglers. This will help us evaluate whether we are meeting angler catch rate goals for each size class of rainbow trout, and guide management decisions to improve rainbow trout size structure if we are not meeting our goals.
HOW MUCH WORK IS IT? Not much at all! It should take only a few additional moments to record the species and size of each fish after landing it. We just ask that for whichever day you are measuring fish, you measure every fish for that day. At the end of your fishing day you can simply take a picture of your data sheet and send it to the contact info provided.
WE WILL PROVIDE: Data sheets, which can be found be found in a mailbox at the Lees Ferry boat dock, or here: DATA SHEET and INSTRUCTIONS
CONTACT Dale Fonken with any questions: dfonken@azgfd.gov or 503-730-0424.
Your donation will help us make both the Apache Trout and Gila Trout become the
first fish species to be removed from the Endangered Species Threatened List!
This lapel pin is our gift to you with your donation of $50.00
