Impacts of recreational angling on fish population recovery after a commercial fishing ban

It is often assumed that recreational fishing has negligible impact on fish stocks compared to commercial fishing. Yet, for inland water bodies in densely populated areas, this is unlikely to be true. In this study we demonstrate remarkably variable stock recovery rates among different fish species with similar life histories in a large productive inland freshwater ecosystem (Kaunas Reservoir, Lithuania), where all commercial fishing has been banned since 2013. We conducted over 900 surveys of recreational anglers during a period of four years (2016 to 2021) to assess recreational fishing catches. These surveys are combined with drone and fishfinder device-based assessment of recreational fishing effort. Fish population recovery rates were assessed using standardised catch per unit effort time series. We show that recreational fishing is having a major impact in retarding the recovery of predatory species, such as pikeperch and perch. In contrast, recovery of roach, rarely caught by anglers, has been remarkably rapid and the species is now dominating the ecosystem. Our study demonstrates that recreational fishing can have strong impacts on some fish species, alter relative species composition and potentially change ecosystem state and dynamics.