Fish-Community Effects of Recreational Fishing in Freshwater and Marine Systems

Recreational anglers affect fish populations directly by harvest and indirectly by catch and release.  Recreational anglers primarily catch and harvest the fish species being sought, though they also tend to catch other species incidentally.  Network analysis was used to understand catch data acquired from creel surveys for four recreational fishing systems; in particular, relationships of co-occurrence of fishes in catches were elucidated for multiple angler groups based on the species sought.  The four systems included two freshwater fisheries in Nebraska (USA) and two Atlantic coast marine recreational fisheries in North Carolina (USA) and Florida (USA).  Individual anglers (or individual parties) affected few (3-10) species in the simple, freshwater fisheries and many (1-29) species in the complex, marine fisheries.  It is likely that individual anglers in all systems assessed affect the fish community more than the population of the species being sought.  Insight into the associations and patterns among fishes caught by individual anglers across fisheries is necessary to better understand the influence of recreational fishing on fish communities.