Assessing angler use and demographics at three Sandhills Game Land lakes using trail cameras

Fisheries Research Fact Sheet Assessing Angler Use and Demo¬ graphics at Three Sandhills Game Land Lakes Using Trail Cameras October 2018 3 4S f WCATRSCAU The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission’s (Commission) Sandhills Game Land (SGL) comprises 64,500 acres in rhe south-central portion of North Carolina. While the SGL is primarily managed for timber and wildlife habitat, it also contains nine impoundments that are open to the public for fishing and other types of recreation such as paddling and hunt¬ ing. These lakes were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, range in size from 2 to 74 acres and contain naturally reproducing populations of Largemouth Bass, Bluegill, Redear Sun- fish, Chain Pickerel, Yellow Perch and Black Crappie. Additionally, 1 ,200 Channel Catfish are stocked into Indian Camp Lake annually. Until now, no information had been collected regarding the amount and type of use on the impoundments located on the SGL. While these lakes represent a significant portion of the impoundments owned by the Commission, they are located in rural areas and access to these lakes can be limiting, making traditional creel surveys with staff difficult to execute. Typically, Commission creel surveys have focused on larger bodies of water that receive heavy amounts of use and also are located near denser population areas. They also require hiring additional staff to conduct the creel. Since a tra¬ ditional creel survey was not feasible. Commission staff deployed trail cameras to document use of these game land lakes. Objectives: • Quantify the amount and type of use at three lakes on the SGL. • Assess the utility of trail cameras for collecting angler use information. Methods: • Three lakes were selected for this study: Indian Camp Lake, Crappie Lake and Kin¬ ney Cameron Lake. Indian Camp Lake is 5 acres and contains a gravel parking lot and two fishing piers. Crappie Lake is 20 acres and contains a gravel boat ramp and areas along the bank for fishing. The third lake, Kinney Cameron Lake, is 35 acres and has a gravel boat ramp and unimproved fishing areas along the bank. • These lakes were also selected because access to the lakes varied by distance from a major road and they had different amenities (i.e. boat ramp, fishing pier, etc.). • Cameras were set to take one photo every 1 5 minutes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily from Oct.l, 2015 through Sept. 30, 2016. • Images were downloaded every 30 to 60 days and stored on a laptop computer. Images were analyzed using time lapse image enumeration software. • For each image collected, the number of users, defined as anyone visiting the lake, were counted. Further analysis was made to determine type of use: bank angling, kayak angling, canoe angling, jon boat angling, hunter, horseback rider, or unknown and counts were also made by user type. If a person was engaged in some type of angling, gender and age (< 16 years old = youth while > 16 years old = adult) were assigned if they could be determined and additional counts were made based on these determinations. Hoffman Indian Camp Lake Kinney Cameron Lake 0 0.5 1 2 Kilometers j I I I I I I I Fig. 1: Map of three lakes on the Sandlnlls Game Lands used to evaluate usage from October 2015 to September 2016 Ukt Fig. 2: Mean count per image of all users and all anglers at each of three Sandhills Game Lands lakes from October 20 15-September 2016. N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission Inland Fisheries Division A www.ncwildlife.org