Program on the Environment

Prevention of aquatic invasive species transmission by recreational fishing and boating (i.e. angling) is a fundamental management challenge. These activities can entrain non-native plants and animals via tangled lines, bait buckets, or hull encrustation, leading to introductions into new waterbodies. With hundreds of millions of people participating in fishing trips each year, understanding angler movement behavior can provide critical insight into the most effective locations and scales at which to apply preventative measures such as boat cleaning stations and informational signage. However, angler behavior is often inferred from infrequently and sparsely conducted surveys that provide limited spatial and temporal insight into this challenge. Here I capitalize on a big data opportunity provided by ReelSonar’s recently launched iBobber, a sonar-enabled fishing bobber with over 3,000,000 records of fishing location, water depth, and environmental variables collected over three years. By quantifying geographic patterns of fishing activities and assessing how these patterns change seasonally, I explored angler behavior in terms of fishing frequency and distance traveled between sites, and characterized the attributes of fished waterbodies. My study offers novel insight into spatiotemporal patterns of angler behavior and carries important implications for predicting and preventing future transmission of aquatic invasive species via recreational fishing.