A methodology for simulating the US recreational fishery for billfish

A simulation model of the process for recreational tournament fishing for billfish is developed, using the northeastern Gulf of Mexico as the study area. The objective is to explore the relationship between catch-rate and abundance. Starting with an initial fish population, both the boat and fish move throughout a spatial grid as the fishing day progresses. The simulation first determines if a fish is within proximity of a boat and, if so, if the fish was subsequently raised to the bait. It then determines if a raised fish was hooked. Data are tabulated on the number of fish hooked by all boats fishing during a tournament day per 100 hours of effort. The catch rate is classically used for indexing abundance