Optimal management of recreational fisheries in the presence of hooking mortality and noncompliance — predictions from a bioeconomic model incorporating a mechanistic model of angler behavior

Abstract

Using a bioeconomic model, we systematically investigated how hooking mortality and regulatory noncompliance influenced management outcomes across a range of freshwater fish species exploited by diverse angler populations. The model integrated an empirically based submodel describing the behaviour of three angler types with an age-structured fish population submodel calibrated to five life-history types (LHTs). Increased hooking mortality generally undermined regulation effectiveness, decreased socially optimal input (license numbers) and output regulations (minimum-size limits), and eroded the social welfare anglers derived from the fishery. However, the results strongly varied with LHT and angler type. Noncompliance had an isolated effect, primarily affecting fish species with low compensatory reserves when hooking mortality was low. However, in the absence of regulatory constraints on effort, noncompliance facilitated recruitment overfishing and increased the minimum-size limit required to avoid it. Despite added mortality from hooking and noncompliance, the strong dependence of angler utility on catch rates usually meant socially optimal management safeguarded biological sustainability. Yet, ignoring hooking mortality and noncompliance when predicting optimal regulations often led to population collapse. To conclude, models designed to derive recommendations for recreational fisheries management must consider both hooking mortality and noncompliance. Otherwise, dissatisfied anglers or biologically overfished stocks are possible.