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Recreational fisheries are social-ecological systems (SES), and knowledge of human dimensions coupled with ecology are critically needed to understand their system dynamics. Creel surveys, which typically occur in-person and on-site, serve as an important tool for informing fisheries management. Recreational fisheries creel data have the potential to inform large-scale understanding of social and ecological dynamics, but applications are currently limited by a disconnect between the questions posed by social-ecological researchers and the methods in which surveys are conducted. Although innovative use of existing data can increase understanding of recreational fisheries as SES, creel surveys should also adapt to changing information needs. These opportunities include using the specific temporal and spatial scope of creel survey data, integrating these data with alternative data sources, and increasing human dimensions understanding. This review provides recommendations for adapting survey design, implementation, and analysis for SES-focused fisheries management. These recommendations are: (1) increasing human dimensions knowledge; (2) standardization of surveys and data; (3) increasing tools and training available to fisheries scientists; and (4) increasing accessibility and availability of data. Incorporation of human dimensions information into creel surveys will increase the ability of fisheries management to regulate these important systems from an integrated SES standpoint. 

Recreational fisheries are culturally and economically important around the world. Recent research emphasizes that understanding and managing these systems requires a social–ecological perspective. We systematically reviewed quantitative social–ecological models of marine and freshwater recreational fisheries to summarize their conceptualization of social, ecological, and social–ecological dynamics and identify research frontiers. From a candidate set of 626 studies published between 1975 and 2018, 49 met criteria for inclusion in our review. These studies, though diverse in terms of focal species and processes considered, were geographically limited to a few locations and ignored large regions of the globe where recreational fishing is important. There were also important gaps in the social and ecological processes that were included in published models. Reflecting on these patterns in the context of previous conceptual frameworks, we define five key frontiers for future work: 1) exploring the implications of social and behavioural processes like heuristics, social norms, and information sharing for angler decisions and fishery dynamics; 2) modelling governance with more realistic complexity; 3) incorporating ideas from resilience thinking and complex adaptive systems, including slow variables, destabilizing feedbacks, surprises and diversity; 4) considering key ideas in fisheries systems, including spatial and temporal effort dynamics, catch hyperstability, and stocking; and 5) thinking synthetically about the models that we use to describe social–ecological dynamics in recreational fisheries, via explicit comparisons and formal integration with data. Exploration of these frontiers, while remembering the distinction between model complexity and model usefulness, will improve our ability to understand and sustain recreational fisheries.