Looking for fisheries data? Try the Annual Report

If you are looking for statistical information on marine fishing in North Carolina, there’s an easy one-stop place to find it. Each year, the License and Statistics Section summarizes all of its fisheries information in a License and Statistics Annual Report, affectionately known within the Division of Marine Fisheries as the Big Book of Data.

The License and Statistics Section includes multiple programs that collect a tremendous amount of data every year. More specifically, these data include participant and license information from fishing license sales; commercial landings and effort through the Trip Ticket Program; recreational harvest, catch, and effort through the Coastal Angling Program, and socioeconomic information from surveys conducted across the commercial and recreational fishing sectors.

The Annual Report is typically published in the fall and is delivered to the Marine Fisheries Commission at its November meeting.

The Annual Report is divided into six chapters that break down the data collected into various summaries for quick reference. The chapters are as follows:

  1. License and Permit Statistics, which includes commercial, recreational, and for-hire license and permit sales statistics by fiscal year;
  2. Commercial Fishery Statistics, which shows commercial fishery landings statistics from the Trip Ticket Program;
  3. Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics including recreational catch and effort from the Marine Recreational Information Program which contain data calibrated using the new Fishing Effort Survey;
  4. Central and Southern Management Area Recreational Fisheries Statistics, which includes recreational Striped Bass and shad harvest statistics from the Pamlico River area south to the Cape Fear River;
  5. North Carolina Recreational Saltwater Activity Mail Survey, which includes information from all three surveys currently distributed by the division; and
  6. Fisheries Economics, which quantifies the economic impact estimates for commercial and recreational fisheries in North Carolina.

While the License and Statistics Annual Report can’t answer all the data requests the division receives, it does give the public an idea of the type of data available. Customized data requests can be submitted by contacting the division at 800-682-2632 or P.O. Box 769, Morehead City, NC 28557.

The License and Statistics Section Annual Report is one of the most commonly used and referenced reports the division produces, and it truly takes a team effort to complete. Although publishing the report takes a lot of coordination, its usefulness in answering questions makes the effort worthwhile and showcases the heart of the License and Statistics Section.