Puerto Rico HMS Telephone Survey Pilot Study
about mid-March through September. Cumulative effort estimates across sampling periods are shown for HMS tournament trips and blue marlin tournament trips in Figure 3. Table 5. Expanded estimates of fishing effort (vessel trips) for HMS in Puerto Rico by mode. Puerto Rico Effort Estimate (Vessel Trips)
HMS Angling (Private Boat )
HMS trips Billfish targeted trips HMS tournament trips Blue marlin tournament trips
Estimate 3,123 1,144 543
PSE 6.8% 10.7% 17.0%
384
20.4%
HMS Charter/Headboat (Charter) Estimate PSE 960 11.4% 616 15.1% 57 55.6% 57
55.6%
Total (modes combined) Estimate 4,083 1,760 600
PSE 5.8% 8.8% 16.3%
441
19.1%
Figure 2. Cumulative HMS vessel trip estimates and billfish directed trip estimates in Puerto Rico across bi-weekly sampling periods. HMS trips in Puerto Rico
Billfish targeted trips in Puerto Rico
4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0
HMS Catch Results In addition to fishing effort, respondents were asked to report the number of blue marlin caught, and the disposition of each fish caught, over the previous 2-week sampling period. Table 6 shows the unexpanded reported number (raw counts) of directed billfish trips, blue marlin released alive, kept/released dead, and tagged/released on those trips, by quarter and mode. None of the 100 blue marlin reported as caught had a previously placed tag on it. 14
