Research Document 2020/054
The Saguenay Fjord Winter recreational groundfish fishery, 1996–2018
By Gauthier, J., Marquis, M.-C., Valentin, A. E. and Parent, É.
Abstract
The status of the marine species caught in the Saguenay Fjord recreational fishery was assessed annually from 1995 to 2010 and every two years from 2012 to 2018. This assessment is based on various indicators from a monitoring program for the winter recreational fishery (also known as ice fishing) (1995–2018), a Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) research survey (2000–2018) and a recent individual logbook initiative (2015–2018). This report presents the data and methods used to derive the indicators from the monitoring program for the winter recreational groundfish fishery in the Saguenay Fjord. Estimates of the number of fish per unit of effort (NUE) for more than 20 years of recreational fishery sampling (1996–2018) are presented for the following species: redfish (Sebastes spp.), Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), Greenland cod (Gadus ogac) and Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides). In addition, biological parameters of the sampled populations are indicated.
Groundfish catches in the Saguenay winter recreational fishery are composed on average of 88% redfish, 10% cod (Atlantic and Greenland cod) and 2% Greenland halibut for the 1996–2018 time series. For the Saguenay as a whole, the redfish index of abundance decreased from 1996 to 2006 and remains low since with values clearly below those at the beginning of the series. Indices of abundance for Atlantic cod, Greenland cod, and Greenland halibut are at low level. However, since 2013 there has been an increase in NUE for the Atlantic cod and Greenland halibut with values above their respective series average.
Studies published in the late 2000s (Sévigny et al. 2009, Sirois et al. 2009) suggest that groundfish populations in the Saguenay appear to be sink populations whose recruitment depends on the arrival of juveniles from the St. Lawrence Estuary (Bui et al. 2012). Although groundfish reproduction does occur in the Saguenay, larval survival of these species would be compromised by conditions in the warm, brackish surface water layer, preventing a significant local contribution to recruitment, particularly for redfish and cod (Sirois et al. 2009). Strong cohorts of redfish (Sebastes mentella) (2011, 2012 and 2013) were noted in the Estuary, and their abundance was at the highest level seen in the last 30 years (Bourdages et al. 2019). The presence of these new cohorts in the Saguenay Fjord has been observed since 2013, namely in the stomach contents of large redfish, during a major stranding at Saint Fulgence in December 2014, in the smelt fishery and during research surveys (Gauthier et al. 2019). The recent high abundance cohorts are beginning to recruit to the recreational fishery, but the fish are small in size. These redfish had a modal size of 16 cm in 2017 and of 20 cm in 2018 and made up nearly 10% of redfish catches. The medium term outlook is encouraging for the winter recreational redfish fishery in the Saguenay Fjord.
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