Description and initial evaluation of a text message based reporting method for recreational anglers

Successful survey programs involving angler submitted data have been able to provide fisheries managers with additional indices for comparisons to existing scientific surveys, as well as increase angler participation in the data collection process.  Survey configurations aside, the lack of a portable, low-cost, electronic reporting device for the average angler has not facilitated fisheries survey design.  We have developed a simple but fully customizable reporting method by which users can submit basic effort and catch information to an online database via text messages from mobile phones.  To evaluate this new approach, we asked captains on behalf of six marine for-hire operations to send a text message to document effort, catch, and disposition of catch by species at the completion of each for-hire trip over a 4.5 month evaluation period.  Report submission was facilitated by RECTEXT, a compact syntax we developed to allow users to submit information within the technical limitations of a 160-character text message framework.  During the course of the study, captains submitted 128 trip-level reports that described 1,957 finfish interactions. Results and feedback from captains indicated that the approach was easy to use, cost efficient and allowed for real-time reporting of recreational data directly to an online database.