Using Recreational Fishery Catch Rates to Inform Allocation of Yield to Management Areas

Stock assessments often make assumptions about the spatial structure of fish populations that are different from management areas. In these situations, yield estimates from the assessments are allocated to the management areas based on the best available data sources (e.g. survey biomass estimates, habitat maps, or total landings). On the U.S. West Coast, spatial allocation of yield for data-limited stocks has been based on estimates of total removals due to a lack of survey and/or habitat data. This use of total removals as a measure of abundance makes strong assumptions about spatial patterns in historical fishing activity. We present a method that combines recent habitat information with fishery-dependent catch rate data to inform spatial allocation of yield in data-limited situations.