The Use of Telephone-Diary Surveys for Assessing Seabass Recreational Fishing: Outputs from a French Experience

Seabass recreational fishing is a very important activity in France. According to a national telephone survey total catches of recreational fishing could be equal to half of total landings (5 000 tons for recreational fishers and 5 000 tons for commercial fishers). Due to the Data Collection Framework, France is now obliged to monitor seabass recreational fishing and to provide data on catches, mean size, mean weight and other parameters regarding these catches for each French coastline (Channel, Atlantic and North Sea). Telephone survey has been considered as not enough precise to produce sound data on these parameters. Therefore, a dual survey – telephone and diary – has been launched in 2009 and finished in 2011. The telephone survey enable us to defined precisely the profile of seabass recreational fishers – regarding number of fishing trips, engines, modes of fishing, location, socio-professional categories, etc. Among interviewed people, some volunteers have been recruited to complete logbooks. This communication will address the pro and the cons of this dual methodology and will present the result of this work, underlying differences observed between the standard telephone survey and the dual survey.