North coast creel surveys

Historical data for fish caught on river systems along the northern Washington coast, based on interviews with boat and bank anglers.

Voluntary Trip Reports

Starting this season, WDFW's north coast creel survey team is implementing a pilot study to see if Voluntary Trip Reports (VTRs) are a viable option to collect harvest data on days without creels, from anglers who are not interviewed, and from rivers we are unable to survey due to staffing limitations. By gathering more data, we can better understand the fishery and provide additional opportunity when appropriate. 

Paper VTRs can be filled out at popular fishing sites, which have drop boxes for completed forms, or returned to creel samplers. Online forms are also available on our PublicInput survey page. From the starting page, you can take a different survey for each river you may have fished.

We will avoid double counting, as anglers will record on the form whether they were interviewed by a creel sampler that day. VTRs will account for released fish, which make up a large part of the sport fishery harvest during the winter steelhead season. Catch Record Cards currently do not include data for released fish.

Important information

New regulations for coastal rivers: see Coastal Steelhead Management webpage, emergency rules, or use the Fish Washington mobile app

Visit the WDFW Newsroom for additional information and updates, or subscribe to our email lists.

For Olympic National Park fishing regulations, please visit their website or call 360-565-3000.

For information on treaty tribal fisheries, the list of agreed fisheries (LOAF), and fisheries co-management, visit this WDFW webpage.

River levels and weather information:

For 2022 and newer creel survey data covering the entire season, visit the past-season surveys archive page. For full-season data prior to 2022, visit: 20212020 | 20192018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014

Please note that the data provided has not yet undergone Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) procedures and may be subject to revision. The preliminary values provided are only a sample of fishing effort and have not been used to calculate full estimates of catch and angler hours. We advise against making any critical decisions based solely on this preliminary data, as its accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed until it has undergone our rigorous QA/QC procedures. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we work to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data.

To view and download the source data for this table visit the WDFW Creel Summary Counts dataset on data.wa.gov.

Latest in-season creel surveys

Choose a water body, and/or species to filter the contents of the table automatically. Buttons at the upper-right of the table allow you to switch between row and card view, display the table full screen, and export the data shown in the table in the format that you select.

Timeframe
Water body
Species
Offset Year Date River Catch Area Code # Anglers Interviewed # Anglers Using a Boat Species Wild Released Wild Harvested Hatchery Released Hatchery Harvested Other Fish Released Other Fish Harvested Hours Fished