Fisheries Management

Barotrauma and Successful Release of Fish Caught in Deep Water

Betty Staugler, Holly Abeels, Angela Collins, Shelly Krueger, and Kai Lorenzen

Managing Florida Ponds for Fishing

Charles E. Cichra

What is stock assessment?

Nicholas Fisch, Angela Collins, and Edward V. Camp

Whether you’re an angler, diver, conservationist, or just interested in fisheries, you’ve likely heard the term “stock assessment” before. What are stock assessments? How do they work? How do they inform management decisions? This publication provides information to the public and people serving in natural resource management agencies and working in outreach and Extension to show how fisheries management decisions are made.

How to Define Successful Stocking of Florida's Freshwater Recreational Fisheries

Edward V. Camp, Rick Stout, Nick Trippel, Jon Fury, Stasey Whichel, and Kai Lorenzen

Fish Population Recruitment: What Recruitment Means and Why It Matters

Edward V. Camp, Robert N. M. Ahrens, Angela B. Collins, and Kai Lorenzen

Awareness, Knowledge, and Perceptions of Barotrauma and Barotrauma Mitigation: A Survey of Florida Anglers

Charles Adams, Joy Hazell, Lisa Krimsky, Bryan Fluech, Elizabeth Staugler, John Stevely, and Robert Botta

A UF/IFAS numbered Fact Sheet. in support of UF/IFAS Extension program: Environmental Literacy and Sustainability

Recreational Fishing Effort and How Management Actions Can Affect It—Part 1: Theory

Edward Camp, Micheal S. Allen, Thomas T. Ankersen, Savanna Barry, and Mark W. Clark

Recreational fishing is especially important to Florida’s economy and ecosystems. One of the most important metrics of recreational fisheries is “effort”—defined as the number of trips taken during a time and place. Effort is so important because it directly affects fish population sustainability, economic value and market activity. But what determines fishing effort? This publication describes the mechanisms that drive fishing effort. It specifically details the processes by which management actions can directly and indirectly affect fishing effort, and how feedbacks between these actions can change effort. The information in this document is critical for people involved with management decisions, like agency personnel and their stakeholders; those wanting to explain it to others, like extension agents; directly affected stakeholders like recreational fishers and guides; or simply the general public who want to know more about recreational fisheries in Florida.

An Introduction to Harvest Tags for Marine Recreational Fisheries

Edward Camp, Zachary Siders, Andrew Ropicki, and Frank Asche

Managing recreational fisheries requires balancing sustainability against allowing as much access and harvest as possible. Maintaining sustainability is made harder by discard mortality where any fishing activity, even catch and release, risks fish dying from injuries, predation, or other causes. This is especially a problem for Florida reef fish species that live at depths and habitats where barotrauma increases mortality and depredation by larger fish, sharks, or marine mammals increases it further. Harvest (or trip) tags could reduce overharvest, lower discard mortality, and allow anglers more freedom to choose when to fish. Harvest tags would limit the total fish harvested, but could eliminate one of the least popular current management restrictions, harvest seasons. This publication describes harvest tag approaches, discussing how they are already used in fishing and hunting and describing some of the potential benefits and costs if they were applied in Florida.

How Oyster Reefs Can Affect Finfish Recruitment

Gabrielle Love, Anna Braswell, Angela B. Collins, and Edward Camp

Recruitment is a very important life stage for fish which has direct impacts on size of the whole fish population. During this phase, the mortality juvenile fish experience is affected by their density because of competition for the available resources. How much fish density affects mortality in recruitment is itself affected by many factors, but one of the most important is the structural habitat available to juvenile fish. Structurally complex habitats like oyster reefs are thought to have a particularly strong influence on the recruitment process of certain species. Here we describe the ways that habitat can alter recruitment success. We focus on how oyster reefs affect recruitment of fish in Florida and the particular issues related to management of this important habitat.

Fish Population Recruitment 2: Stock Recruit Relationships and Why They Matter for Stock Assessment

Edward V. Camp, Robert N.M. Ahrens, Angela B. Collins, and Kai Lorenzen

A good understanding of stock recruit relationships is essential for accurate stock assessment and good fisheries management. But the concept is complicated and can be difficult to understand. This publication uses a recent Florida spotted seatrout stock assessment as an example to show how the stock-recruit relationship allows managers to determine whether or not a given fish population is overfished.

Recreational Fishing Effort and How Management Actions Can Affect It—Part 2: Literature and a Case Study

Edward Camp, Micheal S. Allen, Thomas T. Ankersen, Savanna Barry, and Mark W. Clark

Recreational fishing, crucially important to Florida’s economy and ecosystems, can be affected by management decisions. Decisions that change the allowable harvest or the type of access to certain fishing areas are often expected to have strong effects on fishing effort, but the outcome of these actions is not always obvious. To provide greater insight into what may happen to fishing effort after management decisions, we describe case studies from the North American fisheries literature, some Florida-specific. These illustrate that the same or similar management actions (e.g., a more restrictive harvest policy) can have opposite effects on total fishing effort depending on the specifics of the case. We use this information as well as additional fisheries theory to explore a specific case study—what might happen if special harvest or access regulations were applied to a popular but ecologically and environmentally sensitive habitat—Florida's St. Martins Marsh Aquatic Preserve.

Catch the Nature Coast Currents

Savanna Barry

Nature Coast Currents 2022-2023 We are pleased to announce registration is open for the 2022-2023 webinar series, Nature Coast Currents! This free monthly webinar is designed to publicly communicate the results of the newest science and research conducted in the Nature Coast, especially along the southern portion that is encompassed by the Nature Coast Aquatic […]

New Federal South Atlantic Fishing Regulations: Descending Device Required On-Board

Holly Abeels

Beginning July 15, all recreational, commercial, and for-hire vessels will be required to have a working descending device on-board and readily available when fishing for any of the fish in the snapper-grouper complex in federal waters of the Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina to Florida. In Florida, this means any vessel that is fishing for […]

One fish, two fish, where’s that huge fish? Collaborative efforts inform Goliath grouper management

Angela Collins

Goliath grouper are one of Florida’s most iconic fish. Capable of reaching sizes greater than 7 feet in total length and weighing in at over 700 pounds, this fish is not afraid of much of anything. A reef associated species, Goliath grouper are often encountered at shipwrecks, reefs, or any other structure that provides them […]