Ozarkanglers Forum Quoted In St Louis Post

[Chief Grey Bear]

So how do you two suppose they do it then?

Email? Maybe, If they have everybodys email address.

Snail mail? How much would that cost? I can't wait until I get a survey for Mark Twain Lake.

Phone call?

Maybe they will drive by the house and stop in. I'll call you.

[Wayne SW/MO]

So how do you two suppose they do it then?

Just a thought, but I wonder if they could interest some university programs? Maybe MSU's wildlife oriented program?

[Al Agnew]

Yellowstone National Park gives you an angler survey card when you buy your park license, that you're supposed to fill out at the end of your trip (or the end of the year). Obviously that probably isn't any more effective than having somebody at the access asking people questions, but it's an additional way of getting some results. And it really depends upon the questions on the survey. Opinion questions can be asked at any time. Heck, you could do a phone survey for opinion questions, calling a random sampling of fishing license buyers in given counties. You could farm out something like that.

Point is, though, that I'm not saying they should necessarily be looking for better ways of surveying anglers, I'm saying they should maybe not put so much importance as they seem to be doing on the surveys.

[Gary Lange]

We had a survey of sorts going on one year in Illinois that was a voluntary thing. It involved signing up to participate and you would receive a booklet and each time you went out fishing you would record the days information in the book. If I remember it had the date the air temp, water temp, river or stream, number of fish, size and if you kept any or released them. When the booklet was full you sent it in and they would send out another.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Yellowstone National Park gives you an angler survey card when you buy your park license, that you're supposed to fill out at the end of your trip (or the end of the year). Obviously that probably isn't any more effective than having somebody at the access asking people questions, but it's an additional way of getting some results. And it really depends upon the questions on the survey. Opinion questions can be asked at any time. Heck, you could do a phone survey for opinion questions, calling a random sampling of fishing license buyers in given counties. You could farm out something like that.

Point is, though, that I'm not saying they should necessarily be looking for better ways of surveying anglers, I'm saying they should maybe not put so much importance as they seem to be doing on the surveys.

I suppose a year end survey could be conducted. I doubt the reliability though. Just making and observation here but, Yellowstone covers a lot of area. Missouri covers a lot of area. I am thinking that the MDC, when conducting a survey, is shooting for a more detailed analysis of user information on a specific section of water.

The more I think about phone surveys and the such, my dad hasn't bought a license in 6, 7 years now, due to age. How many of those fishermen would miss out? He lives in Jasper county but, last year only fished there twice.

I just think that there are too many variables in any method other than conducting the survey at the point of question. I would say that it may be a safe bet that if a survey happens in a certain area, chances are they are studing the area to make an improvment and they want the general anglers experiences and opinions on that specific area.

I also like to say, I don't think it fair to compare the number of agents to the number of survey takers. Those that actually preform the survey are mostly assistants, making $7 or $8 an hour and are usually part time employees, volunteers, making nothing, or interns, working towards a degree.