This being the final week to collect my social/demographic shellfisher information marks a significant landmark in my time here at Hatfield Marine Science Center. Due to having a relatively small number of boat interviews I have recently been targeting boaters at locations like Sawyers Landing and the Marina docks in Yaquina Bay, along with the Port of Alsea Bay down in Waldport. Luckily, my high demand for boat interviews comes at an excellent time as peak crab season is just getting into full swing around here. But unfortunately it is a little disappointing how my window of time to gather shellfisher data ends right as the crabbing is picking up. This makes me feel like I’m only getting a small taste for how large the crabbing population around here truly is. During my stay here I have become rather accustomed to low amounts of crabbers, but this last week has blown all previous assumptions. For instance, yesterday was an all depth halibut day which brought hoards of offshore fishermen to the coast. Yet almost every boat was also pursuing crab as a secondary catch by basically throwing pots while they weren’t hooking fish. There were honestly so many boaters here in town that someone actually used the Hatfield housing parking lot to park their trailer over night. Goodness gracious! This next leg of my research will primarily consist of using Microsoft Access to analyze the data. Some initial summary questions I’d like to have answered: are what percentage of crabbers and clammers harvest from Alsea Bay, Yaquina Bay, and Siletz Bay? and what is the average group size? ect. Once I’ve answered those questions and other similar ones I imagine more in depth questions will become apparent. Spending time indoors versus talking with fishermen of course is not as thrilling but I can already tell I am going to learn a lot about Microsoft Access from simply spending the time sitting down with it and working out whatever problems arise.
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