About the Marine Recreational Information Program
The Marine Recreational Information Program administers a suite of recreational fishing surveys and produces catch and effort estimates that support science and management needs.
Important Update: NOAA Fisheries is transitioning to a new recreational fishing data enterprise that improves trust and confidence in recreational fishing data and management. The resulting framework will build on a strong state-federal partnership to give stock assessment scientists and decision-makers access to the most accurate recreational catch and effort data. This partnership-driven data framework co-created with commissions and state agencies will replace the Marine Recreational Information Program. Learn more about the transition phase—called the Recreational Angler Partnership Improvement Directive—which will kick off with a series of workshops slated for summer and fall 2026.
NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Recreational Information Program is the state-regional-federal partnership that develops, implements, and continually improves a national network of recreational fishing surveys to estimate total recreational catch. These estimates are combined with commercial catch data and biological research to help scientists and managers assess and maintain sustainable fish stocks.
The Marine Recreational Information Program operates as a partnership. Under this approach:
- NOAA Fisheries maintains a central role in developing data collection and estimation methods, administering recreational fishing surveys, implementing survey and data standards, and producing recreational fisheries statistics.
- Regional and state partners identify data collection priorities, coordinate survey operations and on-site data collection, and participate in quality assurance and quality control procedures.
Our methods of data collection are:
- National in scope, but regionally specific, recognizing that unique regions have unique fisheries, fishing communities, and preferred methods of collecting information from anglers.
- Flexible enough to be updated, modified, expanded, or contracted to meet regional information needs.
- Robust enough to provide the most precise and least biased information possible.
- Inclusive and transparent, providing scientists, managers, and stakeholders with an opportunity to participate in their development and use.
Strategic Goals
In 2017, the Marine Recreational Information Program published a five-year strategic plan to formalize its longstanding approach toward improving recreational fisheries statistics and ensuring the needs of our data customers are met. This plan defines our vision, direction, and metrics for success. It also outlines the goals we are driving toward and the strategies and tactics we will undertake to achieve them. These goals are:
- Meet customer needs. Provide recreational catch, effort, and participation statistics that meet the defined and prioritized needs of our regional and national customers.
- Provide quality products. Achieve consistency, quality, timeliness, accessibility, and transparency in data collection, estimate production, and program operations.
- Increase understanding. Strengthen communications with partners and stakeholders to improve their knowledge of the properties and use limitations of catch statistics, and to build their confidence in the data.
- Ensure sound science. Maintain a strong foundation that includes robustness, integrity, transparency, and innovation, and that develops and incorporates new advancements in survey design, data collection, and data analysis.
- Operate collaboratively. Work with state, interstate, regional, and national partners to support cost-effective and responsive recreational data collection and catch estimation.
- Meet program resource and funding needs. Ensure the program’s value and needs are documented and communicated; resources are used efficiently; opportunities to expand capability through partner resources are explored; and actions to ensure sufficient funding to support the needs of the program are taken.
National Priorities
Each year, the Marine Recreational Information Program publishes an implementation plan that outlines the program’s annual priorities. These priorities are informed by the program’s strategic goals, as well as specific needs identified by its regional partners.
MRIP Implementation Plans
Annual implementation plan updates are listed below.
- 2023-2024 Update (PDF, 15 pages)
- 2022-2023 Update (PDF, 14 pages)
- 2021-2022 Update (PDF, 15 pages)
- 2020-2021 Update (PDF, 16 pages)
- 2019-2020 Update (PDF, 14 pages)
- 2018-2019 Update (PDF, 14 pages)
- 2017-2018 Update (PDF, 14 pages)
- 2016-2017 Update (PDF, 16 pages)
- 2015-2016 Update (PDF, 16 pages)
- 2014-2015 Update (PDF, 20 pages)
- 2013-2014 Update (PDF, 18 pages)
- 2012-2013 Update (PDF, 19 pages)
- 2011-2012 Update (PDF, 30 pages)
- 2010-2011 Update (PDF, 54 pages)
- 2009-2010 Update (PDF, 56 pages)
- The 2008 MRIP Implementation Plan (PDF, 46 pages) was the first published.
Regional Priorities
The Marine Recreational Information Program’s eight Regional Implementation Teams develop Regional Implementation Plans that identify regional information needs and recommendations for programmatic improvements. These plans are updated at least every 5 years.
Alaska Priorities (2023-2028)
This is Alaska's first Regional Implementation Plan.
- Support current programs
- Modernize the Statewide Harvest Survey Program
- Develop data storage and assimilation structure and policy
- Support and provide outreach for the Saltwater Guide Electronic Logbook
- Expand both dockside sampling programs
- Improve recreational release mortality data for a) Pacific halibut and b) rockfish
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for Alaska
Atlantic Coast Priorities (2023-2027)
- Improve precision and presentation of MRIP estimates
- Continue progress on comprehensive for-hire data collection and monitoring
- Improve recreational fishery discard and release data
- Improve timeliness of MRIP recreational catch and harvest estimates
- Expand biological sampling of recreational fisheries
- Improve in-season monitoring
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for the Atlantic Coast
Gulf Coast Priorities (2023-2026)
- Implement Alabama and Mississippi creel surveys
- Improve timeliness of recreational catch and effort estimates
- Improve recreational discard/release data
- Expand biological data collection
- Develop transition plan for For-Hire data collection methods
- Further work on the inclusive and transparent process for review of recreational effort and catch estimates and treatment of outliers
- Identify additional methods for collecting spatial data
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for the Gulf Coast
Pacific Coast Priorities (2023)
- Maintain current survey sampling levels and restore base levels of sampling, including new funding for NOAA Fisheries-certified programs
- Implement and support enhanced electronic data collection by survey field samplers
- Increase onboard sampling of commercial passenger fishing vessels or recreational charter boats
- Investigate and maintain video-based methods and technology to estimate fishing effort
- Stratify party and charter boat sampling by trip type and sampling period for Southern California
- Improve access to NOAA Fisheries’ survey database
- Calibrate, or rescale, historic state catch estimates based on updated information
- Update state survey designs, estimation methods, and data system to meet NOAA Fisheries’ recreational fishing data collection program’s survey and data standards
- Continue progress on NOAA Fisheries’ certification for all state recreational fishing surveys to ensure surveys are statistically valid to meet objectives and provide key estimates
- Continue ongoing improvements to the RecFIN database and reporting system and modernize data transfer
- Expand California’s sampling for collection and processing to determine the age of recreationally caught groundfish
- Increase support for additional personnel to help determine the age of recreationally caught groundfish
- Improve outreach activities and educational materials for the Pacific coast sportfishing community
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for the Pacific Coast
U.S. Caribbean Priorities (2017)
- Develop a governance structure that will ensure consistent, accurate, and stable staff administration and data collection and management outcomes
- Design and implement a saltwater recreational fishing data collection program for the U.S. Virgin Islands that is attuned to and functions within the unique character of that island group
- Refine the existing saltwater recreational fishing data collection program in Puerto Rico to strengthen programmatic oversight and administration and ensure data are being collected from all fishing modes and for all species important to management
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for the U.S. Caribbean
Pacific Islands Priorities
- Conduct an expert technical review of the Territorial creel surveys
- Complete the review process and secure MRIP certifications for the recommended regional survey designs
- Provide full funding for the surveys that meet the minimum survey standards for Hawaii, American Samoa, and the Mariana Archipelago
- Improve the timeliness of non-commercial catch estimates
- Develop an algorithm that extracts the non-commercial component of the total creel survey catch estimates
- Develop a mobile data entry system to support near-real time reporting
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for the Pacific Islands
Atlantic HMS Priorities
- Redesign the Large Pelagics Survey
- Expand the Large Pelagics Survey
- Include Atlantic HMS for-hire vessels in federal for-hire electronic logbook reporting programs
- Reduce the reporting burden placed on anglers
- Develop a method of integrating Atlantic HMS catch and effort data from multiple sources (e.g., the Large Pelagics Survey, Access Point Angler Intercept Survey, Fishing Effort Survey, and Greater Atlantic vessel trip reports)
- Evaluate the combination of catch card harvest reporting programs with tournament landings reporting programs, as well as the expansion of tournament landings reporting programs
- Improve and expand data collection on recreational shark fisheries
- Revise the HMS charter/headboat permit category
- Evaluate opportunities to revise the Large Pelagics Biological Survey
- Improve HMS recreational data collection in the U.S. Caribbean
Read the MRIP Regional Implementation Plan for Atlantic Highly Migratory Species
Gulf State Data Transition Process
The Gulf of America (formerly Gulf of Mexico) has regionally specific management needs for high-profile species such as red snapper. Therefore, NOAA Fisheries has been supporting the development and implementation of state data collection programs designed to produce more timely and more precise recreational catch estimates for certain species. A team of representatives from Gulf state agencies, including Gulf Fisheries Information Network, Gulf Council, Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, as well as NOAA Fisheries is working together to ensure information recreational anglers submit to the five state surveys is available to inform the federal stock assessment and management process. These surveys include Texas’ Coastal Creel Survey, Louisiana’s LA Creel, Mississippi’s Tails n’ Scales, Alabama’s Snapper Check, and Florida’s State Reef Fish Survey.
Learn more about the Gulf State Transition Plan
Teams
The Marine Recreational Information Program is organized into teams. These teams provide a conduit for state agencies, interstate marine fisheries commissions, regional fishery management councils, and other partners to help inform the program’s priorities.
Methods
The Marine Recreational Information Program's Survey Design and Statistical Methods for Estimation of Recreational Fisheries Catch and Effort describes the technical details of the surveys designed and administered by the program, as well as the methods the program uses to produce estimates of total recreational catch. It includes information about current and legacy survey designs, anticipated survey improvements, and the calibration methodologies that have allowed us to preserve the integrity of our long-term time series of recreational catch statistics while implementing changes to survey designs.
Standards
The Marine Recreational Information Program's Survey and Data Standards promote data quality, consistency, and comparability across the program’s recreational fishing surveys, thereby facilitating the effective shared use of the statistics these surveys produce. The standards reflect best practices currently in place at the U.S. Census Bureau and other federal agencies that use statistics for decision-making, as well as statistical survey standards, requirements, and guidelines published by the Office of Management and Budget. Ultimately, the standards will further ensure the integrity of our data collection efforts, the quality of our recreational fisheries statistics, and the strength of science-based management decisions.
Products
There are several ways to access the data collected by the Marine Recreational Information Program, as well as the recreational fisheries statistics the program produces. You can:
- Download general data, general estimates, or large pelagics data and estimates.
- Download statistical analysis programs to run custom domain analyses.
- Use the MRIP Query Tool to filter catch, effort, and fish length data by time series, geographic area, species, mode, and other characteristics.
- Submit custom data requests.
- Receive email notifications of updates to MRIP data, estimates, and queries.
The program also maintains an online database of saltwater fishing access sites that serves as the sample frame for our shoreside survey of recreational anglers.
Research
The Marine Recreational Information Program funds and conducts research to improve recreational fishing data collection across the United States. This allows the program and its partners to keep pace with emerging science and information needs while producing quality data that supports science and management. Select projects related to statistical precision, electronic reporting technologies, and other topics of interest are highlighted on the MRIP Research page. The projects the program has funded since 2008 are listed in the MRIP Projects Database.
Continuous Improvement
The Marine Recreational Information Program is committed to continuous evaluation and improvement of its recreational fishing surveys.
- Evaluate methods. Partners and stakeholders—including scientists, statisticians, state agencies, and individual anglers— objectively evaluate our existing methods and and provide recommendations that help inform new or improved survey designs.
- Develop and test methods. Recommendations for new or improved survey designs are tested, peer-reviewed, approved, and certified prior to implementation.
- Implement methods. Putting new or improved survey designs in place requires careful planning to balance the allocation of limited resources in support of national and regional data needs. We work with our regional partners to evaluate these regional needs and weigh potential tradeoffs between precision, timeliness, coverage, and other survey characteristics. We also ensure the methods that are implemented meet our survey standards and best practices.
Programmatic Reviews
The Marine Recreational Information Program participates in independent programmatic reviews. We use the resulting recommendations to improve how we collect, analyze, and report recreational fishing data. The Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2018 also requires NOAA Fisheries to report on certain aspects of the program's work.
- Review of Recreational Fisheries Survey Methods (2006) (National Research Council). In response to this review and in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act, NOAA Fisheries replaced its Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey with the Marine Recreational Information Program and established a National Saltwater Angler Registry.
- Recreational Fisheries Management: The National Marine Fisheries Service Should Develop a Comprehensive Strategy to Guide Its Data Collection Efforts (2015) (U.S. Government Accountability Office). In response to this review, the Marine Recreational Information Program adopted a five-year strategic plan.
- Review of the Marine Recreational Information Program (2017) (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). In 2017, the program established a framework (PDF, 11 pages) for addressing the 28 recommendations within this report. In accordance with the Modern Fish Act, the agency submits a biennial report to Congress detailing its progress toward these recommendations.
- Data and Management Strategies for Recreational Fisheries with Annual Catch Limits (2021) (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). In accordance with the Modern Fish Act, the agency submitted a report to Congress detailing its response to the recommendations within this report.
- The MRIP Plan for State Partnerships (2021) explains how the program leverages state and regional partnerships to effectively implement the recreational fishing data collection program.
- The MRIP Report on State Partnerships is a biennial report to Congress developed in consultation with state partners and Fisheries Information Networks, and outlines states’ current status of meeting their agreed-upon recreational fishing data submissions to NOAA Fisheries, estimated accuracy of recreational fishing state registry information, data uses by region, as well as state priorities for improving recreational fishing data collection.
Outreach
In collaboration with our state and regional partners, we have developed a catalog of outreach and educational materials that explains how data are collected, how estimates are produced, and how these estimates are used to inform recreational fishing science and management.