their living. Many can and will help scientists in 

 the acquisition of reasonable quantities of data 

 which will yield information for science as well as 

 to help him make a better living. Sport fishing cap- 

 tains have cooperated with scientists by tagging 

 fish, collecting specimens, stomach contents, or 

 gonads, collecting water samples and plankton, 

 taking water temperatures, and releasing drift 

 cards for current studies, as well as by maintaining 

 logbooks of when and where they caught fish. But 

 the boat captain really has little scientific informa- 

 tion on the habits or ecology of billfish, and he can 

 obtain this only through conversation, in nonscien- 

 tific language, or by reading nontechnical articles. 



I It is the duty of the scientist to supply this infor- 

 mation if he is to receive continued cooperation. 

 Excellent examples are the newsletter which 

 Frank Mather sends to all his billfish taggers and 

 the circular of the Southwest Fishery Center 

 (NMFS) sent to anglers in the Hawaiian Interna- 

 tional Billfish Tournaments. A similar but different 

 service is performed by the International Game 

 Fish Research Conference, sponsored by the In- 

 ternational Oceanographic Foundation in Miami. 

 At these annual meetings, anglers, guides, boat 

 captains, news writers, and scientists gather to- 

 gether informally to discuss game fish and game 

 fish research. 



The cooperation of the billfish captain is most 

 important if adequate, meaningful scientific data 



i are to be collected. Scientists interested in billfish 

 research have only three methods of recourse to 



: secure data: they can collect billfishes themselves, 

 a highly expensive, time-consuming, and ineffi- 

 cient technique (especially since most scientists 

 are notoriously poor anglers!); they can rely on 

 commercial longliners, who are invaluable, but 

 who usually cannot supply data from coastal sport 

 fishing areas where longlining is sociologically off- 

 limits; or they can rely on a large number of sport- 

 fishing boats to gather quasi-synoptic data. For 

 this, the boat captain is indispensable. 



The Angler 



The billfish angler may be little more than a 

 pawn as far as billfishing is concerned. In spite of 

 the payments he makes and the distances he 

 travels to catch billfish, he is at the mercy of the 

 habits of the billfish, the expertise of the captain 

 and mates, and the dependability of the fishing 

 boat. His expertise in most cases is not required to 



catch the billfish, for the captain finds the fish, and 

 he and the mate tell the angler when and how to 

 set the hook and how to fight the fish; the angler, 

 essentially, merely reels, pumps, and reels, until 

 the mate grabs the wire leader, then the bill, and 

 then gaffs and boats the fish or releases it. Yet the 

 skillful captain permits his angler to believe that he 

 has caught the fish "all by himself." It is little 

 wonder, then, that after one sailfish, the angler 

 may become a self-styled expert, thereafter fre- 

 quently suggesting to the captain how to run the 

 boat and how fast to troll. 



It is here that the scientist must rely on the boat 

 captain to help him win over the angler to cooper- 

 ate in supplying scientific data. A well-informed 

 boat captain can convince the angler that he should 

 tag and release his fish, or open the stomach, or 

 bring the fish in for study. Only too often, anglers 

 frustrate scientists' efforts to obtain a sufficient 

 number of billfish for study because they believe 

 "it's bad conservation" not to release. Thus, the 

 scientist is deprived of the much-needed data 

 which will enable him to determine what is "bad 

 conservation" and an appropriate management 

 program. Such cooperation requires the scientist to 

 communicate his thoughts to the angler, as well as 

 to the boat captain. Catch and effort data, economic 

 information, logbook data, tagging information, and 

 moral and financial support may all emanate from 

 the billfish angler, but it is a matter of supplying 

 information and education on the part of the scien- 

 tist. 



The Sportfishing Industry 



As such, there is no real sportfishing industry in 

 the sense that there is a commercial fishing industry. 

 Sport fishing is represented by builders of boats, 

 motors, rods, reels, tackle, lures, and various 

 specialized gear for billfish such as fighting chairs, 

 gin poles, and outriggers. There is no single, unified 

 voice which speaks on behalf of this broad field. 

 The American Fishing Tackle Manufacturing As- 

 sociation is extremely important, but represents 

 only a small portion of the industry. 



The single most important influence in the de- 

 velopment of sport fishing, including billfish and 

 their research and conservation, has been the Sport 

 Fishing Institute, Washington, D.C. In its monthly 

 Bulletin, it reports on latest research finds, angling 

 activities, legislation important for sport fisheries, 

 conservation programs, education in the aquatic sci- 



27 



