Characterization of Tournament Catch and Effort Through Voluntary Text Message Reporting

Fisheries managers often avoid charactering catch and effort at fishing tournaments because of the non-normal fishing behavior associated with these events.  For some fisheries, including king mackerel, tournament catch is thought to account for a significant portion of the total harvest.   The objective of this study was to evaluate the use and applicability of the text message based catch and effort reporting method “RecText” (www.RecText.org) in the tournament setting.  To educate anglers about the importance of the project and the need for more detailed information from this fishery, project team members personally interacted with an estimated 2,500 anglers (1,000+ boats) at 6 tournaments.  Through a combination of paper and text message surveys, approximately 15% of tournament trips were characterized by volunteer anglers.  The total number of king mackerel kept per angler hour reported by anglers in this study was not statistically different than that reported by fishermen submitting paper surveys to DMF biologists at 4 tournaments in 1992 -1993.  Feedback from participating anglers and results from the exit surveys indicate that tournament anglers are willing to provide data and can readily adapt to new survey technologies.  Overall, the study was successful and generated positive feedback from the public, press, anglers and other scientists also considering the use of text messaging and social media to conduct research in fisheries.  With minimal effort and increased coordination between tournament organizers and fisheries managers, cell phone based reporting approaches like the one described in this study could be expanded and improved.