In addition, about 4.7 million hatchery reared smolts were released into the Baltic Sea in 2020.
The current (2020) total wild production in all Baltic Sea rivers is about 2.7 million smolts, corresponding to about 71% of overall potential smolt production capacity.
Long-term trends for smolt production in southern Main Basin rivers have remained stable or slightly decreasing. For most rivers in Gulf of Bothnia smolt production is pre-dicted to increase slightly in 2021.
Since the 1990s, production of wild salmon smolts has gradually increased in the Gulf of Bothnia and Gulf of Finland.
According to updated estimates, the total landed (retained) catch from recreational trolling has in recent years ranged from about 15 000 to 25 000 salmon per year. In particular, the offshore trolling fishery for salmon has developed rapidly since the 1990s and early 2000s.
The share of recreational catches of Baltic salmon in sea and rivers has increased over time, and at present they represent about half of the total fishing mortality.
The level of estimated misreporting of salmon as sea trout remained on a very low level just as in 2019.
Reported efforts in commercial salmon fisheries have also remained on a low level. This is mainly due to significant decrease of misreporting in the open sea fishery. The fishery related mortality for salmon in 2020 (including estimates of unreported, misreported and dis-carded catches and recently revised estimates for recreational trolling) was similar com-pared to 2019.
Total salmon catches have decreased continuously since the 1990s.
Section 5 presents data and assessed stock status for sea trout. The same section also covers methodological issues of assessment as well as sampling protocols and data needs for assessment. Status of salmon stocks in the Baltic Sea is evaluated in Section 4. Section 3 reviews data from salmon spawning rivers, stocking statistics and health issues. Section 2 of the report covers catches and other data on salmon in the sea, and summarizes in-formation affecting the fisheries and management of salmon. Salmon in subdivision 22–31 were assessed using Bayesian meth-odology with a stock projection model (data up to 2020) for evaluating impacts of different catch options on the wild river stocks. The Baltic Salmon and Trout Assessment Working Group was mandated to assess the status of salmon in Gulf of Bothnia and Main Basin (subdivisions 22–31), Gulf of Finland (Subdivision 32) and sea trout in subdivisions 22–32, and to propose consequent management advices for fisheries in 2022. ICES 2021 Record created | Last updated ICES Scientific Reports volume 3, issue 26 DOI: Baltic Salmon and Trout Assessment Working Group