Angling for data: Recreational anglers’ records of conger eel ( Conger conger) landings from the English Channel between 1990-1991

Declines in commercial fish stocks have been well documented through government records of catches. Here we demonstrate that records from anglers, if appropriately interpreted, can be used to provide detailed retrospective data on population trends in fish species. We highlight this with reference to records of conger eel from the British Conger Club that show a decline in size and abundance of conger through the 1990s, during which time the commercial extraction of the species increased markedly. Anglers’ records are a potentially important source of quantitative data on population trends of a number of poorly studied species.