Angler Response to Success in the California Salmon Sportfishery: Evidence and Management Implications

This paper examines effort responsiveness to success in the California salmon partyboat sport fishery. The management process in this important fishery involves setting target harvest levels for both commercial andsportfishing groups and then using closed seasons, restricted gear, and possessionlimits to dampen effective effort. An important component of the managementprocess involves forecasting sportfishing effort and its effect on catch in order to advance-plan management actions. For want of better information, simple proportionality rules-of-thumb are used currently and this paper examines the plausibility of these. Some simple models forecasting aggregateangler participation and aggregate partyboat catch on a weekly basis are estimated across several different ports. Our findings suggest that anglers are responsive to recent success in several sports (elasticities up to + .5) and thatangler participation affects catch with an elasticity exceeding unity. Theseresults indicate that the simple rules of thumb currently in use could be insubstantial error.