Electronic Self‐Reporting: Angler Attitudes and Behaviors in the Recreational Red Snapper Fishery

Managing large multiuser fisheries involves large amounts of data and information, including information directly from anglers. Angler‐provided information may come in the form of attitudinal and behavior surveys, in addition to voluntary reporting of catch information. In this study, we wanted to better understand anglers fishing for Red Snapper Lutjanus campechanus in the Gulf of Mexico. Toward this end, we conducted an in‐season attitudinal survey in 2018 to collect angler opinions in five areas: (1). interests, motivations, and barriers to electronic catch reporting, (2). important aspects of the Red Snapper fishery, (3). reasons why anglers report catch, (4). dockside reporting compared with electronic reporting, and (5). perceptions of fishery management agencies. Concurrently in the summer of 2018, an electronic smartphone app was made available for recreational anglers to voluntarily report their catch. We had 3,016 survey results that represented an 18% reporting rate. The survey results suggested that 84% of respondents already use a variety of smartphone apps in relation to fishing and that at least 80% reported that they were willing to electronically report their catch. Despite this high reported willingness to electronically report their catch, data from electronic reports showed that only about 1% of respondents actually reported. The development and use of electronic reporting applications (i.e., smartphone apps) holds promise to provide a wide variety of timely data to fishery managers; however, as in our study and others, usage rates remain low and challenges remain if self‐reporting and other nonprobabilistic sampling methods are to be useful to fishery managers.