Impacts of fishing pressure

Project 3. Is fishing pressure adversely impacting trout populations and the quality of the trout fishery?

Excessive angler take of fish can impact the trout population by diminishing brood stock numbers and possibly impacting on the numbers of young fish produced. Finding out how many fish, and what size of fish, anglers take is important information to gather. 

Action: Conduct a targeted angler / visitor feedback creel survey and tag return reward program in one case-study river (Howqua River) to understand catch and harvest levels.

• How will this help?: Conducting a targeted survey will provide indications of fishing pressure, fisher behaviour, visitor preferences, fisher avidity and expenditure over a broader area in the wild trout streams of Victoria. A tag return program will also provide a quantitative measure of fishing catch and mortality on a wild trout stream to test whether fishing pressure is significantly affecting the trout fishery and provide an indication of whether current regulations are adequate.

Year 1 results

Fishing pressure - Year 1 (PDF - 1.1 MB)
Fishing pressure - Year 1 (WORD - 2.3 MB)