Comparative analyses with conventional surveys reveal the potential for an angler app to contribute to recreational fisheries monitoring
Growing interest in apps to collect recreational-fisheries data requires that relationships between self-reported data and other fisheries data are evaluated, and that potential biases are assessed. This study compared results from a mobile-phone application and website for anglers (MyCatch) to results from three types of fisheries surveys – 1 provincial-level mail survey, 2 creel, and 17 gillnet surveys. Results suggest that an app/website can (i) recruit users that have a broad spatial distribution that is similar to conventional surveys, (ii) generate data that capture regional fishing patterns (2218 trips on 289 lakes and 90 streams/rivers), and (iii) provide catch rate estimates that are similar to those from other fisheries-dependent surveys. Some potential biases in app users (e.g., urban bias) and in the relative composition of species caught provincially were identified. The app was not a suitable tool for estimating fish abundance and relative community composition. Our study demonstrates how apps can/cannot provide a complementary data-collection tool for recreational-fisheries monitoring, but further research is needed to determine the applicability of our findings to other fisheries contexts.