Can Someone Explain To Me What Catch Per Unit Effort Is?

[Catch and Grease]

I have been reading documents about the local lake I fish and they have graphs that show the Catch per unit effort over the years...

 

It seems like it will be stable/slowing decreasing then spike one year and be in the 30-35 range then go back to the 15-20 range. What is catch per unit effort, what is considered a good catch per unit effort for large mouth bass?

 

http://www.fws.gov/bankslake/pdf/bankslakedrawdownea07.pdf Here is a PDF download of a document with one CPUE chart, it is table 2 in section 1.2

[BigMoneyGrip]

Sounds like number of fish per boat to me.

[Verisimilidude]

Taken from :https://gfp.sd.gov/fishing-boating/tacklebox/lake-surveys/central-lakes/docs/technical-terminology.pdf

 

 

"Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE) is the catch of fish or animals in numbers or weight taken by a defined period of effort.  In fisheries most commonly refers to trap-net nights of effort, gill-net night of effort, or catch per one hour of electrofishing."

[Catch and Grease]

Wow... So in one hour of electro fishing they only caught 15 bass sometimes? The seems horrible.

In 2006 the CPUE was 11 according to that chart, but then again that's awhile back...

[WRB]

You need to study this report from start to finish and take your time to comprehend what you read.

The numbers in Table 2 are percentage of the CPUE Electro shocking catch, not numbers of fish.

The bottom line is Banks lake has a weed and trash fish problem, the largemouth bass population is not doing good, trash fish out number sport fish before and after weed treatment.

Tom

[Catch and Grease]

Well I think that problem has gotten alittle better now but thanks WRB.

[TBO]

i always thought it was how many of that species they netted in a certain time in a certain area.  

 

[Catch and Grease]

I wish I could find some more recent reports on banks lake, I'd like to know if the bass populations are below average now a days. Its a tough lake, Idk if that's just because I suck at fishing or if there aren't many bass.

[Verisimilidude]

It's possible that the catch per unit effort is in lbs there.  If you look at the chart, that seems to make the most sense -- why else would there be 15.29 CPUE of LMB per hour?  (Unless they shocked for an uneven amount of time, but then why measure in CPUE?)

[Catch and Grease]

Maybe it was an average??

[Verisimilidude]

Yeah i suppose that's probable.

[WRB]

The proposal attached is a draft, was any of the alternative plans implemented?

Tom

PS, appendix A defines CPUE as numbers or weight of fish caught per time period, electro shocking was used to catch fish.

[Catch and Grease]

The proposal attached is a draft, was any of the alternative plans implemented?

Tom

Yes, they drained the lake in 2007 I believe...

Dunno if they have done much else since then...

[Catch and Grease]

I think they drained it in the 90s too.

[WRB]

Looking at the draft proposal Table 2 the lake was drained to 100 acres in 2001, restocked with bluegill and bass in 2002. Looking at the fish populations in 2005 things look fairly stable then in 2006 the populations crashed. If they drained the lake again in 2009, you need to see a current CPUE report to determine the population density.

When you catch a LMB is the fish healthy; girth exceeds 75% of the length or skinny with a big head?

This lake is having problems and the DNR is trying to solve them and you don't know the status of the bass population.

Good luck!

Tom

[Catch and Grease]

The fish from banks are healthy from how they look, I'll shoot some emails around and see if I can find a recent evaluation on the lake