Newswise — As odd as it may seem, fishery experts in Oklahoma are looking to metropolitan areas to revive more widespread interest in fishing.
Noticeable declines in fishing and hunting license sales around the country for nearly a decade have caused wildlife and fisheries experts to look for ways to entice people back to the outdoors.
Studies are being done in the Oklahoma City area to find out what would bring out anglers in greater numbers in urban areas. Oklahoma State University's department of natural resource ecology and management is helping to find answers for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation.
Dane Balsman, an OSU graduate student in the NREM department, has been doing a lot of legwork to give the ODWC a better picture of urban fishing.
His research will help ODWC's "Close to Home Fishing Program" look at potential fine-tuning it needs to add additional cities. Through stocking and management of a number of municipal lakes and ponds, the program has provided a supply of state-grown fish for sites in the metropolitan Oklahoma City area since its inception in 2002.
"The reason we got OSU involved in this is we didn't have the time or manpower to find out what was happening with those fish," said Gene Gilliland, CTHFP coordinator.
Dan Shoup, OSU assistant professor of fisheries and aquatic ecology, oversees the research Balsman is conducting as part of his master's degree program. Balsman's two years of research will help to give a "face" to Oklahoma's urban angler, a key to marketing increased interest.
"One of the focuses of fisheries management across the country has been to try to recruit anglers,' he said.
Shoup said anything that keeps people from losing the conservation ethic gained in previous decades is important.
"The country's population has been moving from rural areas into urban centers for more than a decade, and that shift has changed leisure activities," Shoup said. "This is fairly alarming to a lot of state agencies around the country because a lot of their funding comes from license fees."
Balsman has spent nearly two years researching both the fish and those who fish at selected sites in the Oklahoma City area, to compile data from fish population surveys and surveys of anglers.
It is a two-part study: Very little is known about the use of these ponds and the demographic makeup of who is using them.
"The human side is about the harvest anglers want, and their satisfaction with current fishing," Balsman said. "Some people go out and fish for an hour or two after work."
Facilitating that ease of access to fishing areas is one of the goals for the CTHFP.
Balsman's research is designed not only to help answer questions about anglers, but also questions about how many of the ODWC-stocked fish are being caught. The information will help ODWC decide stocking plans and amenities like fishing docks, lights or more trash cans in high-use areas.
The OSU graduate student collects fish to weigh and measure in order to determine a number of things about them and how well they are surviving in the lake or pond where they have been stocked. He also uses scientific methods to age the fish by microscopically examining a section from their pectoral fins, a process similar to reading the annual rings of trees.
Balsman's findings will allow ODWC to see the types and sizes of fish preferred by Oklahoma's urban anglers.
Gilliland, the central region fishery supervisor for ODWC, said that the thrust of the program is working with cities and towns that have fishing access of some sort such as park ponds or homeowner association lakes, and cooperatively providing better fishing opportunities.
He said national surveys show that the majority of people in the country have been fishing, and efforts are needed to help them continue fishing.
"We already do a lot of work with city ponds and lakes," Gilliland said. "What this program does is put those on a little higher priority with our biologists."
The program is not all about increasing license sales, although that is a major focus.
"An important component of the program involves helping people understand what kind of environment fish need, so they can transfer that to the need for water quality, something that transfers over into many other areas of their lives," Gilliland said.
Information about fisheries management and ecology as well as a number of natural resource areas of interest can be found at the Oklahoma State University NREM Web site at http://nrem.okstate.edu/index.html. A list of related links including one for ODWC is also located on the site.
Oklahoma State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, State and Local Governments Cooperating: The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to all eligible persons regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, or status as a veteran, and is an equal opportunity employer.
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