Robert Beal and Connie Young-Dubovsky, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, 1444 Eye Street, N.W. Sixth Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005

Abstract. The Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP) is a state-federal cooperative program to improve the collection and management of recreational and commercial fisheries statistics on the Atlantic coast. The ACCSP is composed of 23 participating agencies, including the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the 15 Atlantic coast states from Maine through Florida, the District of Columbia, The Potomac River Fisheries Commission and the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission. Over the past two years, the ACCSP has been developing the data collection reporting requirements and methodologies for commercial and recreational fisheries, including for-hire fisheries. The current program provides for stratification of charter boats and headboats, with guideboats categorized with charter boats. Standard definitions have been developed for each of these fishing sectors to ensure consistency in collected information among agencies. A minimum set of standard data elements will be collected on the for-hire fisheries, to include catch and effort data, biological information, and social and economic data. The methodology for collecting for-hire information will be evaluated during 1998 through a three-way evaluation study. The methods to be evaluated during this pilot study include: 1) 100% mandatory logbook reporting to collect both catch and effort data, 2) a telephone survey using a for-hire vessel sampling frame for effort data, and 3) the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey (MRFSS) effort estimates. The pilot study proposed for funding under the ACCSP will involve the states of South Carolina, Maine and New Hampshire.