By-catch in a recreational fishery: an unmonitored source of mortality.

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1 Environmental Studies, University of Illinois at Springfield, Springfield, Missouri, United States
2 Department of Biological Sciences, Stephen F Austin State University, Nagodoches, Texas, USA
3 Department of Biological Sciences, UT Health Science Center - San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA
4 Texarkana Water and Utilities, Texarkana, Texas, 65501
5 School of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA
6 Department of Biology and Agriculture, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, Missouri, USA
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.120v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Biodiversity, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Environmental Sciences
Keywords
bycatch, recreational fishing, fishing mortality, recreational bycatch, by catch, Texas, Wright Patmann Lake
Copyright
© 2013 McCallum et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Cite this article
McCallum ML, Worley GM, Safi B, Dickens K, Jones J, McCallum JL. 2013. By-catch in a recreational fishery: an unmonitored source of mortality. PeerJ PrePrints 1:e120v1

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to infer the possible impact of unmonitored discard of by-catch on a recreational fishery. We recorded by-catch of fishes at a recreational fishery in Northeast Texas, statistically analyzed them, and then projected estimates of mortality if our observations represent a general pattern of behavior. Anglers discarded nine species of fishes during our study. The most frequently discarded fish were Gizzard Shad and Freshwater Drum. Four species of game fish were among the discarded species, but only Channel Catfish and Hybrid Striped Bass composed a large portion of the discarded fishes. Based on our observations, recreational fishing can produce a large amount of by-catch throughout the year and potentially pose an important unmonitored source of fish mortality.