In March of 2007, Bruce M. Baker of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote a report entitled “Summary Report of Results of Bass and Walleye Fishing Contests Held in Washington 2006”  (No newer reports have been filed online).  It had some interesting data in it… so I threw together a little quiz and thought I’d give you a chance to see how good you are at guessing the answers.

1)  In 1980 there were 66 bass contests in the state, in 1990 there were 125.  How many were held in 2006?
     a) 135
     b) 147
     c) 162
     d) 188

2)  A total of ______________ fish were caught (smallmouth and largemouth).
     a)  18,200
     b)  22,371
     c)  26,893
     d)  29,221

3)  The average weight per bass was __________ pounds.
     a) 2.01
     b) 2.34
     c) 2.41
     d) 2.67

4)  When both species (largemouth and smallmouth) were encountered,  ____________ percent of the total number of bass caught were smallmouth bass and ____________ percent were largemouth bass.
     a)  46%, 54%
     b)  54%, 46%
     c)  61%, 39%
     d)  75%, 25%

5)  A total of _____________ percent of all bass weighed in during contests were released alive and reported in good condition.
     a) 89%
     b) 92%
     c) 97%
     d) 99%

In a couple of days, I’ll give the answers, OR you check them out for yourself on

http://www.secstate.wa.gov/library/docs/DFW/basswalleye/2006_bass_walleye_summar...

…tell us how you did, but don’t talk about the answers until the cat is out of the bag.  Have fun!

Missed two, got three right!  But which ones...?   Whose next?

1. b
2. c
3. d
4. d
5. d

Interestingly, when you look at the graph in that report showing percent largemouth caught vs. percent smallmouth, there was a large switch from mostly largemouth to mostly smallmouth... tournaments have changed a lot over the years for anglers. Of course, I think some of this data is thrown off in the past few years since many largemouth that could have been weighed in at Banks or Tri-Cities were not because of the May/June off-limits period.

Thanks for posting the link to the report, Chuck.

Hey Sarge... why do you think there was no report for 2007 or 2008?  Did they just not get the reports on the Web, or did the gentleman who wrote them quit?  Or did they run out of funding?  As our local connection to the the WA State Fisheries, do you have any insight as to why the reports stopped coming?