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ki number of problems plagued the operation of the counters. These problems included positioning of the car counter loops to count only those vehicles which were fishing, designing a car counter loop which would consistently count vehicles and boat trailers as one unit, battery failure during the cold weather months, and the positioning of the loop on the boat ramp so it would effectively count fishermen during low use months and fluctuating water level elevations in the reservoir. Although the car counter fishermen use data showed a high degree of correlation to the total fishermen use data obtained by the aerial counts, the electronic car counters were not considered a good alternative of estimating fishermen use because of problems with the car counters which left the reliabil- ity of the data questionable. Other techniques using three or more cameras ro- LI p duced slightly higher coefficients of determination. But none have proven as reliable as the aerial count technique. R eturns to the creel of two strains of rainbow trout, two strains of cutthroat trout and brown trout were analyzed with the creel survey data. Results show only 17 Eagle Lake rainbow trout returned to the creel during the six month period surveyed in 1980 and 139 during the 12 months surveyed in 1982. All Eagle Lake rainbow have been adipose fin-clipped, except for the 1976 plant which was red dye-marked. O l 101 823 n y , Eagle Lake rainbow trout have been planted since 1976, probably _ accounting for their poor return to the creel. Current plans call for all Eagle Lake rainbow trout planted during the strain evaluation to be adipose fin- clipped. Returns of McConaughy rainbow trout were based on fish returning to the creel during their first year in the reservoir, because no McConaughy rainbow were planted in the reservoir prior to 1982. First year harvest estimates of McConaughy rainbow show 4,769 fish were harvested for a 3.0 percent return to the creel. Plans for the rainbow strain evaluation call for the McConaughy strain to receive left pelvic fin-clips, which is consistent with the clips received by the 1982 and 1983 plants. Returns to the creel of Snake River and Strawberry Reservoir cutthroat trout were disappointing (Tables 20 and 21). Table 27 summarizes the harvest and returns to the creel of both strains of cutthroat trout. Table 27. Cumulative harvest estimates and return to the creel of Strawberry Reservoir and Snake River cutthroat trout (1978 through 1982). Number Cumulative % Returned Species Stocked() Harvest(%) to Creel Strawberry Cutthroat 1,043,993 (52.16) 885 (36.1%) 0.08 Snake River Cutthroat 960,884 (47.9%) 1,567 (63.9%) 0.16 Even though Snake River cutthroat returned to the creel at nearly twice the rates of Strawberry cutthroat, returns were still unacceptable. Possible causes -42-