Using recall surveys to estimate harvest of cod, eel and sea migrating brown trout in Danish angling and recreational passive gear fishing

Recreational fishing is a popular outdoor leisure activity in Europe but the actual impact on the targeted stocks is often unknown. Besides angling, marine recreational fishing in Denmark is practiced using passive gear, such as gill- and fykenets. A list of participants is updated continuously, as all recreational fishermen have to purchase a personal non-transferable and time limited national license before fishing.

However, this list will not include those fishing illegally without a license. Therefore, two types of recall surveys with their own questionnaires and group of respondents were carried out. The first survey - the license list survey – was carried out once in 2009 and twice in 2010. This survey had a sampling frame corresponding to the list of persons that had purchased a license within the last 12 months.

Respondents were asked to provide detailed information on catch and effort per ICES area and quarter. In order to also estimate the fraction of fishermen that fished without a valid license, a second survey, called – the Omnibus survey-, was carried out four times. This survey targeted the entire Danish population between 16 and 74 of age