Abstract

Recreational chartered fishing activity has been increasing in the U.S. Caribbean. Charters were identified from the telephone book, tourism guides, and sports fishing and boating magazines. Most of the information summarized was derived from advertisement and the logbook dataof the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). No data from fishing charter operations were available from Puerto Rico (PR). A telephone survey conducted by the Caribbean Fishery Management Council during 2000, aimed at:\i) Identifying these charter operations for PR and corroborating the information from the USVI,\ii) Collecting information on the number of potential fishers using the resource,\iii) Documenting the number of fishing trips per week,\iv) Identifying the species targeted and caught by the charter operations, and\v) Establishing the operational costs of the charter operations.\Preliminary results indicated that there were over 35 year-round fishing charter operations in the area comprised of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. Although the survey is not completed, 46 of these operations (60 charter boats) have been identified. Most charter operations target the seasonal migrations of pelagic species including marlín, sailfish, dolphin fish, tuna, jacks, mackerels, barracuda, and wahoo. Inshore fishing for bonefish, snook, permit, and tarpon now also includes reef fish. Most of these recreational fisheries do not require anchoring by fishing vessels. It is not known if those charters that advertise for reef fish fishing (groupers and snappers) do or do not anchor their boats.

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