Survey Design Improvements, Catch Histories, and Needs for Calibration to Support Stock Assessments

Implementation of a new survey design for estimating marine recreational fishing effort or catch can cause a disruption to fishery management processes if new catch statistics are not directly comparable to existing Annual Catch Limits (ACLs). A new design may produce more accurate catch estimates that are consistently higher or lower than those produced by a legacy design, but current ACLs will usually be based on stock assessments that used a time series of legacy design catch statistics.  It is very important that we measure, understand, and explain any consistent differences, as well as how such differences changed over time, so we can appropriately account for the design change in revised catch statistics, revised stock assessments and the setting of new ACLs.  Only then will new design estimates be the “best available” for use in fisheries management.  This paper provides examples of how the Marine Recreational Information Program has been transitioning survey design changes into place with appropriate benchmarking of differences between new and legacy designs, development of appropriate calibration models, and revisions of historical catch statistics to allow incorporation of more accurate information into stock assessments and fishery management processes.