LAUSR

AbstractFish populations that exhibit movement patterns present challenges to fishery management. In the Inland Waterway in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, monitoring Walleye Sander vitreus population dynamics and harvest management is difficult because of seasonal intermixing among interconnected lakes. In addition, the presence of tribal subsistence fishing and recreational angling fisheries that occur during different discrete time periods adds complexity to understanding harvest management performance. We used stochastic simulation to determine the influence of movement and harvest dynamics on the performance of harvest management targets for Walleye in our study system. After accounting for postspawn movement and harvest dynamics, our results indicated that population-specific exploitation rates on average did not exceed the target rates (u = 0.35) that are mandated in the waterway. We did, however, determine that some areas are at risk because they experienced population-specific exploitation r...