Making Waves |
March 2013
Catch cards are a commonly utilized offsite method used by some states to more effectively register angler catch while out on the water. Catch cards are actual cards that need to be carried with the angler during fishing trip and are required filled out or punched whenever a designated species is landed. Several states currently use these catch cards as a way of supplementing field or creel surveys in order to improve overall catch accuracy. The Pacific Northwest states for example have been using catch card programs for many years. Oregon utilizes a sports harvest angler tags - commonly referred to punch cards - in the recreational salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon fisheries. On average the return rate for is 19% and results are typically released 6 to 8 months upon the conclusion of the fishing year. Washington, has a saltwater fishing license and a free catch card for all ages that fish for salmon, steelhead, halibut (in some areas), and sturgeon (in some areas). The catch card is free and issued to any individual who purchases the mandatory Washington State saltwater fishing license. In the most recent year, 352,000 salmon cards were issued.
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Catch cards can only be used to estimate trends, as the limitations include anglers incorrectly reporting locations, dates and/or species errors and errors in data entry caused by difficult to read harvest cards. Despite the limitations, catch cards could be a beneficial data collection supplement to the existing programs especially for species such as red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico where the season is extremely truncated and the assessment is highly dependent upon recreational catch data. Don’t get the two confused – catch cards or punch cards (referred to sometimes as angler tags) are not the same as individual fish tags as has been proposed by some environmental and conservation groups. A scheme presented to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council back in 2009 recommended a new, limited entry fish tag program, similar to the individual fishing quota (IFQ) or catch share programs currently being developed for the commercial sector. While these capped, limited individual fish tags which may be offered at public auction or through retail outlets would preclude an angler from targeting a particular species
without first possessing the individual fish tag, catch cards on the other hand would be freely disseminated to saltwater anglers as a method of better monitoring the overall recreational harvest. For real-time, accurate information about fishing effort, harvest and the biological characteristics of landed fish in a particular fishery, an onsite access or roving survey is the method of choice and must be a priority for NOAA. The Magnuson Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act demands a level of timeliness and accuracy that cannot be achieved with the current system, and the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) has long been a proponent of supplement the existing program. Simply put, a system does not exist at this point that can accurately estimate recreational catch at level of timeliness required by the annual catch limit provisions of MSA. If used for its intended purpose and with the addition of supplemental efforts such as catch cards, MRFSS (now called MRIP) could continue to be used to estimate long term trends of recreational catch and harvest so long as recreational fisheries are not held (Continued on page 12)