EIFAC: CIPS on the FSAMFLR Conference

11-15 September 2007, Ceské Budejovice (Czech Republic)

A CIPS delegation has participated in the conference Fish Stock Assessment Methods for Lakes and Reservoirs: Towards the true picture of fish stock (FSAMFLR) held on 11-15 September 2007 at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the University of Ceské Budejovice (Czech Republic). The Confédération Internationale de la Pêche Sportive was represented by Mr. Ferenc Szalay, Vice-President of the CIPS.
Conference sessions were:
• Assessment by floating gillnets
• Assessment in shallow water
• Assessment in lakes
• Sampling with active gear
• Free sample taking
• Intercalibration and standardisation methods
• Demographic and Statistical Approaches
• Use of sport and commercial fishing data

We were particularly interested in the 8th session. 7 presentations were held on the possible contribution of sport anglers to fish stock assessment. Scientists showed through concrete examples that sport anglers are doing “live monitoring” and therefore playing a definite role in the precise assessment of fish stocks. Sport fishing seems to become an important element even in the scientific world. More and more researchers tend to analyse the experiences of sport anglers and are very interested in this knowledge. The contributions of this session have shown that several methods are applied by scientists in connection with sport fishing: questionnaire filled in by anglers at the end of open season, direct surveys after fishing, counting of caught fish, etc. Scientists pointed out that sport anglers are generally very willing to participate in the surveys and in the data collection about inland water such as rivers or reservoirs

We have also made new contacts with members of the international scientific community. This could obviously help to improve authority and social prestige of sport fishing in the future.

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