Abstract

Since 1991, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has conducted annual mail surveys of recreational spiny lobster fishers in Florida. These surveys concern lobster-fishing activity during the periods of the Special Two-Day Sport Season and the first month of the regular season and allow us to estimate the recreational harvest, the number of people that fished, fishing group size, and CPUE for those times.\We estimate that 5 1,510 fishers landed 362,369 lobsters during the 1994 Special Two-Day Sport Season and that 63,225 fishers landed 1,320,045 lobsters during the first month of the 1994 regular season. Most (64%) of the total number of lobsters captured during these two survey periods were harvested in the Florida Keys, and those fishing in the Florida Keys had the highest mean CPUE. Most of the remaining lobsters were harvested along the southeast coast of Florida (Dade and Broward counties). Comparisons with previous surveys indicate that the recreational harvest is stable and composes approximately 20% of the total Florida lobster harvest

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