These summary reports are derived from daily records in the mandatory logbooks submitted to NMFS by captains of Hawaii-based U.S. longline vessels after each fishing trip. At the end of every quarter, all available logbook data from longline fishing operations during the quarter are analyzed and an official report of preliminary non-confidential summary statistics on nominal effort, fish catch, and catch per unit of fishing effort (CPUE) is issued. The report includes a brief narrative and a basic set of tables and charts. The official report is distributed in PDF format. The report's contents are also provided on these Web pages in HTML along with the downloadable PDF file.
At the end of the 4th quarter of each calendar year, preliminary, non-confidential summary statistics of the year's fishing effort, fish catch, and CPUE are computed and issued along with the 4th quarter summaries. Tables of the annual statistics are prepared along with charts showing yearly statistics from 1991 through the current year.
In addition to the latest quarterly report of preliminary statistics, this Web page provides an archive of earlier quarterly and annual summary tables from 1991 to the present. Summary statistics in the online charts and archived tables are updated periodically as additions and corrections are made to logbook data in the PIFSC Oracle database.
The longline catch summaries are prepared for tunas, billfishes, and other fishes identified by the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council as Pelagic Management Unit Species (PMUS). All non-confidential summary statistics of catch and fishing effort are based on activities of three or more vessels. Before the logbook data are summarized, they are subjected to extensive validation checks and known errors are corrected to ensure accuracy.