Catch, effort, fleet size and boat owner expenditure data were collected on Virginia's recreational marlin/tuna fishery for the 1983-1985 seasons. Logbooks, dockside interviews and a telephone survey were evaluated to determine which method was the most efficient and effective for collecting and estimating catch and effort for Virginia's pelagic recreational fishery. In 1984, logbooks were used to collect catch and effort data and fishing effort was estimated using Bochenek's method. Very few fishermen returned their logbooks and as a result this data is probably less reliable than the data collected in other years. Due to the poor return of logbooks, this method should not be used to assess Virginia's marlin/tuna fishery. For the 1985 season, Figley's telephone survey (1984) was compared to the NMFS dockside interview technique for large pelagics. Both the telephone survey using Figley's technique (1984) and dockside interviews using Bochenek's method for calculating effort appear to provide similar estimates of projected total catch. However, the dockside method is very labor intensive, costly and fraught with problems in estimating fishing effort. Therefore, the telephone survey technique using Figley's method for estimating effort appears to be a better method for analyzing this fishery. If telephone interviewing will not work in an area and dockside sampling methods must be relied upon to study the pelagic fishery, Bochenek's method appears to produce a better estimate of fishing effort. Using Figley's (1984) mark-recapture technique, Virginia's pelagic recreational fleet was estimated at 455 and 774 vessels in 1983 and 1985, respectively. Boat owner expenditures for this fleet were estimated at &3,863,045 in 1983, \&4,057,020 in 1984 and &5,538,191 in 1985. Bluefin tuna were caught at SST ranging from 58-83 F but seem to prefer SST of 70 to 75 F. Yellowfin tuna were caught at SST ranging from 68-86 F with the majority landed at SST of 76-80 F. White marlin appear to prefer SST of 74 to 81 F.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:wm.edu/oai:scholarworks.wm.edu:etd-2140 |
| Date | 01 January 1989 |
| Creators | Bochenek, Eleanor A. |
| Publisher | W&M ScholarWorks |
| Source Sets | William and Mary |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects |
| Rights | © The Author |
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