Nebraska anglers prove to be more predictable than originally thought

Researchers have found that fishing behavior of Nebraska anglers may be less unpredictable than originally thought, with seven fishing spots in the state seeing little variation from spring to fall. 

“Our original conceptual model was that anglers are highly mobile and dynamic in their behavior,” Mark Kaemingk, an assistant professor of aquatic ecology at the University of North Dakota and the paper’s first author, said in an Ecological Society of America (ESA) press release. “Our new conceptual model is that anglers, as a whole, could be more predictable than previously thought.”

Since fishing brings in an annual economic income of over $1 billion, researchers thought families would be traveling farther during the summer for fishing, but summer anglers used the same patterns as the spring and fall. 

“Our previous research has also highlighted that where anglers reside on the landscape can be used to predict on-site behavior at the waterbody, such as harvest propensity,” Kaemingk said in the press release.