Determination and development of cost effective techniques to monitor recreational catch and effort in Western Australian demersal finfish fisheries: Final Report for FRDC Project 2005/034 and WAMSI Subproject 4.4.3

Recreational fishers are numerous, diverse and diffuse. They use multiple access points and platforms for fishing including boats launched from harbours, marinas and private docks and from the shore on piers, jetties and beaches. Their nature ranges from avid fishers to infrequent participants and different survey methods will encounter these different types of fishers in different relative proportions. This means that there is no single survey method that can be used to accurately and precisely estimate total catch and effort from all recreational fishers. Consequently, most surveys of recreational fishing have customised designs, which reflect the specific objectives of the survey, the spatial and temporal scope to be covered, the nature of the recreational fishery, and the constraints on resources that are available to conduct the survey. This project compared the efficacy and cost effectiveness of a range of survey methods.