06/12/2026
With salmon fishing seasons getting underway this month in Puget Sound and on the Washington Coast, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) encourages anglers to submit Voluntary Trip Reports: wdfw.wa.gov/licenses/fishing/trip-reporting.
Voluntary Trip Reports (VTRs) help increase the amount of data available to maintain and manage salmon fisheries in Washington's marine areas. Online and paper forms are available on the WDFW website.
Anglers should complete the VTR form as soon as possible after completing their fishing trip. If anglers are unable to fill out the form online, they can return the completed VTR form using any of the following methods:
• Give the form directly to a WDFW catch sampler at the boat ramp.
• Return via U.S. mail (the VTR forms come pre-addressed with postage paid).
• Insert the form into a VTR collection box located at some boat ramps.
• Scan or take a high-resolution photo and email to [email protected].
Voluntary Trip Reports are just one tool in a suite of options managers use to collect data for Puget Sound and ocean salmon fisheries. Other monitoring tools include dockside catch sampling (also known as “creel checkers”) and boat surveys.
VTRs may be used alongside catch sampling, onboard observers, and test fishing data to provide the proportion of each of the four size/mark categories for salmon: legal size clipped, sublegal size clipped, legal size unclipped and sublegal size unclipped.
If anglers submit a VTR, your catch is not being double counted because the information used from the VTR form is the proportion and not numbers of fish!
Anglers may still be asked questions about their trip and catch by dockside samplers and must still fill out Catch Record Cards (CRC) or electronic CRCs in the MyWDFW or Fish Washington mobile apps.
Without selective fishing and the VTR program, Washington's recreational salmon seasons would likely be significantly shorter.
Photo by WDFW of a hatchery Chinook salmon being measured after a day of fishing on Puget Sound.