Evaluation of Annual Recreational Fishery Effort and Harvest Estimates from Postal Survey, For-Hire Logbook and On-Site Creel Survey Programs

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has three programs independent of each other that estimate effort and harvest in sport fisheries: a postal survey conducted annually by mailing a survey to a sample of households containing a licensed angler, a logbook required by regulation to be completed by the licensed for-hire industry, and on-site creel surveys conducted in both fresh and marine waters.  Ideally these programs would provide similar estimates where they overlap (e.g., harvest of a fish stock in the same spatial/temporal coverage).  This project compared and evaluated estimates of angler effort and harvest from these three programs to discern where estimates are similar.  The evaluation investigated similarities and association of estimates among area, species, time and sector (guided and nonguided).  Where estimates differ significantly, we attempted to ascertain cause(s) for the differences.  Results of this project will improve our understanding of potential biases of each program and options to modify sample design in the future to improve accuracy and precision of the estimates.