Abstract

Recreational fisheries have received increasing recognition of its importance in terms of its social (Wilde et al. 1996, Hickley and Tompkins 1998), economic (Hutt et al. 2012) and ecological functions and impacts (Coleman et al. 2004, McPhee et al. 2002). Coupled with the inherent diffuseness of access and diversity of users, recreational fisheries manage-ment must be viewed as a complex socioecological system. As such, managers are in need of possessing an in-depth understanding of both the fisheries resources in question and the users that access those resources (Ward et al. 2013). Biophysical data and dynamics relevant to understanding the natural history of target species are relatively well understood and incorporated in decision support models for fisheries management (Hillborn and Walters 1992). By comparison, data concerning the demographics, preferences, and motivations of recreational anglers are just beginning to be integrated into natural resource management decisions (Fenichel et al. 2012).

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