The fishing and natural mortality of large, piscivorous Bull Trout and Rainbow Trout in Kootenay Lake, British Columbia (2008-2013)

BackgroundEstimates of fishing and natural mortality are important for understanding, and ultimately managing, commercial and recreational fisheries. High reward tags with fixed station acoustic telemetry provides a promising approach to monitoring mortality rates in large lake recreational fisheries. Kootenay Lake is a large lake which supports an important recreational fishery for large Bull Trout and Rainbow Trout.\n\nMethodsBetween 2008 and 2013, 88 large ([≥] 500 mm) Bull Trout and 149 large ([≥] 500 mm) Rainbow Trout were marked with an acoustic transmitter and/or high reward ($100) anchor tags in Kootenay Lake. The subsequent detections and angler recaptures were analysed using a