A Habitat‐Based, Fishery‐Independent Survey Using Actively Fished Hooked Gear Successfully Characterizes Reef Fish Populations in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

AbstractRecognized limitations of fishery‐dependent data under rapidly changing management regimes have resulted in significant effort during recent years to improve the availability of fishery‐independent data in the southeastern United States. These fishery‐independent surveys target numerous species and habitats with various sampling methods, including the use of trawls, longlines, gill nets, traps, and visual surveys. Although passively fished hooked gear (e.g., longlines) are often used to assess the abundance and life history of managed reef fishes, such types of gear are often limited by the habitats they can fish effectively and are species selective. To address these shortcomings, we developed and implemented an actively fished approach to provide fishery‐independent data: the repetitive timed‐drop hooked‐gear method (RTD method). Despite the high degree of standardization applied to the RTD method, important questions remain as to whether active fishing imparts strong angler variability that may reduce the utility of survey data. Accordingly, we analyzed data from 2014 to 2018 to evaluate potential angler bias and how angler‐associated variability compares to other factors often thought to be important predictors of reef fish abundance and community structure. During this study, 962 stations were sampled, representing a variety of artificial and natural reef habitats. In total, 5,770 fish were caught, representing 92 taxa. Sampling was conducted by 103 unique anglers, including 42 commercial or charter fishers and 61 scientists. Results from both population‐ and assemblage‐level analyses found that most of the variability in the catch could be explained by hook size, habitat, water depth, and year. Angler type was rarely correlated with reef fish abundance or assemblages. Our analyses suggest that the RTD method is effective in gathering fishery‐independent abundance and life history data for reef fishes in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and that the resulting data are not strongly biased by an angler effect.