Afish: I appreciate your effort to interview anglers and calculate a usage estimate. Asking anglers what they intend to do is not the route to take, however. Intentions have little merit unless they are acted upon; that's why angler counts on stocked streams are the route to take.
Just for future reference, given a choice between intentions and recall, it would be better to ask for recall of how many times angelrs fished fall stocked waters last fall. But recall surveys have their own problems as well. For instance, some anglers would answer that they fished a fall stocked water even though the stream they fished was not stocked or was not stocked in the management section that they had fished. Their recall of the number of trips made would also be problematic, unless they made very few or else kept a log/diary. Recall surveys are more effective at the tail end of the season rather than a year later.
I emphasize, however, that I appreciate the fact that you took the time to do your survey and express a heart-felt opinion.
As for the counts, weekend counts following the day of fall stockings should be the highest counts seen if the weather is good and should serve as an index to the amount of usage that can be expected in the fall (October, November, early December). In the sub-sample of waters counted across the state, angler usage was low except for one stream. There had been hope for better usage, but the usage seen confirmed what had been heard for years from WCO's, some anglers, one fly fishing group, and some other staff members. The vast majority of the fall stocked streams are fished very lightly (painfully lightly).
I think it is important also for anglers to know that the fish stocked in fall are taken from the spring program, meaning that the number stocked the prior spring in the very same stream section is reduced by the number that is stocked in the fall in that section. Furthermore, due to over-summer mortality, more fish have to be held back from the overall spring program in order to meet the fall allocation numbers. Ultimately, the fall program is much more expensive per fish stocked than the spring program and if usage is low it begs the question whether streams with low usage should be in the program.
