Sampling design and catch

Between the years 2005 and 2015, over 21,000 anglers were interviewed along the German Baltic coast to estimate catch per unit effort. About the same amount of cod were measured to obtain the length distribution of the recreational catch. On average 140,000 anglers went fishing on and from the coast. The total annual effort amounts to approximately 1 million fishing days. Based on the catch and effort data from the on-site survey annual cod catch varied between 1.2 to 2.7 million cod or 1774 and 2962 tons respectively. The majority of the catch in the western Baltic came from private and charter boat anglers and less from shore anglers. Strikingly, less than 30% of the interviewed charter boat anglers in 2010 came from one of the two coastal states. The majority of anglers came from bordering states but also from Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The regular collection of recreational fishery data enables us to reduce uncertainty in the stock assessments as well as to develop fair and equitable co-management of commercial and recreational fisheries.