Recreational fisheries can substantially contribute to fishing mortality for numerous stocks, underscoring the importance of effectively managing this sector. However, estimating recreational fishery effort and harvest has been a persistent challenge for scientists and managers. In the United States and elsewhere, there has been a growing interest in using electronic technologies as platforms for recreational anglers to self-report catch and effort data, with such programs proliferating over the past decade. In this study, we catalogued electronic self-reporting programs in U.S. marine private recreational fisheries while synthesizing key findings and recommendations. In total, we identified 25 programs that varied widely by species, region, goals (i.e., catch estimation versus citizen science), level of usage, and motivation for development, among others. We found that program success often depended on a suite of factors including but not limited to: the presence of a pressing fishery or management issue that prompted anglers to participate; creating the right incentive structure to encourage and sustain participation; continuous engagement between self-reporting program administrators and anglers; and strong validation protocols for self-reported data. This research provides actionable recommendations to inform revisions of existing programs and development of future programs, which may result in valuable data collection from private anglers.
Wilke et al. (2026) studied this question.