Hunter J. Roop

Public fishing areas (PFAs) in Georgia are intensively managed freshwater impoundments that provide a variety of fishing opportunities to an- glers. Management efforts and fishing regulations at these PFAs depend on understanding basic aspects of recreational fishing pressure, catch, and har- vest. Accordingly, we conducted a roving creel survey during January–December 2013 at Marben PFA in middle Georgia to quantify sport fishing total effort, catch, harvest, and fish catch by species, number, and weight in 14 lakes. Almost all of the anglers interviewed (84% of the 1159 parties) targeted...

Literature on recreational fisheries has shown that many aspects of the fishing experience that are non-catch related influence angler satisfaction. However, satisfaction as an independent metric may fail to produce sufficient information regarding perceptions of fishing quality, which may be a more salient component of the fishing experience from a management perspective. Therefore, this study focused on what influences fishing quality in the minds of anglers. We used data collected from a year-long, on-site survey of anglers at the Marben Public Fishing Area (PFA) near Mansfield, Georgia...