Technology (live sonar and mobile lead) and skill as possible drivers of catch inequality in recreational spearfishing tournaments

Catch inequality is common in fisheries, indicated by a minority of fishers catching a disproportionate number of all fish. Skill, experience, and heterogenous investment of time and resources are typical factors proposed to underly catch inequality in recreational fisheries. Technological innovations that impact catch outcomes may either increase (if only adopted by a minority) or decrease catch inequality (if adopted by a majority and such adoption reduces skill differences among fishers). Understanding how fishers’ skill and technologies, including the uptake of live sonar technology, drive inequality is important, as uneven catch distribution can undermine the effectiveness of management measures and influence recreational fisher satisfaction. We investigated the effects that technology adoption and average fishers’ skill levels have on catch inequality in recreational spearfishing, relying on data from Italian spearfishing tournaments from 2004 to 2025. We also examined whether technological innovations influenced the composition of catches. Catch inequality was quantified using the Gini coefficient. We assessed the effect of technological innovations (specifically the use of live image sonar and use of mobile lead in the dive) and average fisher skill (­represented by different categories of tournaments) on catch inequality. No evidence that new technologies affected catch inequality was found, although a weak increasing trend of inequality over time was detected in some tournament categories. Inequality was highest in pair and semifinal tournaments, which gather more heterogeneous competitors, and lowest in finals, restricted to the most skilled spearfishers. These findings suggest that under standardized tournament conditions, average fishers` skill present in a given tournament plays a stronger role in shaping catch inequality than the uptake of technological innovations. Thus, in spearfishing tournaments, regulating technology is unlikely to reduce inequality in catch outcomes.