Relationships between bait collection, bait type and catch: A comparison of the NSW trailer-boat and gamefish-tournament fisheries

The influence of type of natural bait on fish catches and hooking location in a mixed-species marine recreational fishery, with implications for management

“…Indeed, shrimp selected for significantly larger sized fish, and this difference might represent food preferences by larger sized fish or be related to the different shape of the shrimp bait compared to the thinner worm bait, or both. Differences in catch rates and composition of the catch related to bait type have been previously observed both in recreational fisheries (Smith, 2002;Lowry et al, 2006) and hook-and-line commercial fisheries Bjordal, 1992, 1995;Woll et al, 2001), and our results conformed with this earlier research in a mixed-species marine recreational fishery.…”

“…Indeed, the influence of bait type on catch per unit effort and species composition of the catch has been reported from hook-andline commercial fisheries (Løkkeborg and Bjordal, 1992;Woll et al, 2001;Broadhurst and Hazin, 2001). In a recreational fishing context, Lowry et al (2006) found significant differences in catch rates and species composition related to bait type for the trailer-boat and gamefish-tournament fishery from New South Wales (SouthEast Australia), and Smith (2002) detected a relationship between the type of natural bait (either maggots or chironomids) and catch rates for a catch-and-release coarse freshwater fishery in the U.K. Interestingly, this last study also reported between-bait differences in the size distribution of the fish captured by similarly sized natural bait. Most available studies only studied the influence of size of bait on size of fish captured typically reporting positive correlations (Orsi, 1987;Payer et al, 1989;Orsi et al, 1993;Wilde et al, 2003;Arlinghaus et al, 2008b).…”

Recreational catch composition, catch rates, effort and expenditure in a specialised land-based pelagic game fish fishery

“…However, the species composition from the LBGF was similar to the adjacent boat-based recreational game fish fishery, with the most commonly shared species being neritic tunas, mackerels, billfish and carangids (see Lowry and Murphy, 2003;Lowry et al, 2006). The principle difference was the absence of large marlins and sharks, particularly blue and striped marlin, that are less common in neritic waters.…”

“…However, the catch rates of other smaller neritic species and principle baitfish species were similar between the LBGF and boat-based fisheries. For example, catch rates of S. lalandi and S. australis ranged from 0.022 to 0.045 fish h −1 in the LBGF and 0.05 to 0.18 fish h −1 in the boat-based fishery (Lowry et al, 2006). The low catch rates of large game fish species in the LBGF are probably due to fishers generally being restricted to a single fishing location during each fishing session and their fishable area being at the fringe of the normal oceanic habitat of these sparsely distributed species.…”

Catch and effort from a specialised recreational pelagic sport fishery off eastern Australia

“…Fishing practices and target species vary spatially and temporally although fishers generally target large pelagic species using rod and reel from large boats suitable for the offshore environment (Lowry et al, 2006;Steffe, 1996). In some areas, the EAC brings warm waters and pelagic fish within close proximity to the coastline, allowing fishers to target species from small vessels and even from the shore (Griffiths, 2012).…”