Commentary: Creel surveys reveal loads of information for Ohio fisheries

It is curious how sounds evoke memories. Cicadas shrilling in the pinyon-juniper woods behind my New Mexico home transport through the decades to another May afternoon and a younger self aboard a 15-foot jon boat, a creel clerk for the Ohio Division of Wildlife.
I would spend days roving over a reservoir, conducting in-person interviews of anglers in boats and on shore, gathering information on what they caught, how far they drove, hours they spent fishing, and how many fish they kept in the creel. Catch rates and preferences were useful baseline and trend data for a sauger and white bass fishery.