Hawaii Marine Recreational Fishing Survey: Review and Pilot Survey Designs

The Hawaii Marine Recreational Fishing Survey (HMRFS) is currently made up of an access point creel survey to collect catch information and a Coastal Household Telephone Survey (CHTS) to collect fishing-effort information. Recently, HMRFS methodologies were reviewed by a panel of experts who subsequently proposed various improvement options. In response, we have designed a roving catch and effort survey for shore fishing. The roving survey is stratified by region (rural or urban), shift (three 4-hour periods during the day), and day type (weekday or weekend). Each region includes three non-overlapping coastal segments (sample units). The on-the-ground roving survey is complemented by an aerial effort survey and a mail-in effort survey to cover private and remote shoreline areas and night fishing activities. All of these surveys were field tested in January-April 2015. Non-commercial anglers fishing in Hawaii state waters are generally not required to have a permit and therefore there is not a comprehensive list of recreational boat fishers or shore fishers. A pilot mail survey of registered boaters was conducted to evaluate the option of using the state boat registry as a sampling frame for private-boat fishing. We will present the key results from these project studies.