Evaluating Short Openings as a Management Tool to Maximize Catch-Related Utility in Catch-and-Release Fisheries

Catch and release (CR) is an increasingly common strategy for recreational fisheries in which sustaining high catch rates is important. The success of this strategy is reduced if the released fish are temporarily invulnerable to capture due to behavioral changes, as recent research suggests. Here, we explore how temporary fishing closures with short openings might be used in CR fisheries to increase the catch-related utility associated with angler satisfaction from catches. We simulated generic fisheries in single-lake and multiple-lake systems and found that regular, temporary closures could increase catch-related utility-but predominately under the key assumption that angler satisfaction increases disproportionately with increasing catch rates. In the multiple-lake case, a strategy of rotating temporary closures could provide greater catch-related utility than continuously open fisheries, but this would depend upon anglers' willingness to redistribute effort from closed waters to open waters. A key implication of these results is that even in CR fisheries, effort limitation may be necessary to provide quality angling opportunities. Our results also emphasize the importance of understanding how vulnerable pool dynamics can differ across fisheries and potentially interact with other processes and mechanisms that drive the observed changes in catchability and catch rates.