No difference in CPUE between size 20 and size 16 Waggler hooks

In Fishing Sim World, I find the match fishing tournaments interesting, because the idea isn't to catch large fish or heavy fish, but just lots of fish. During the last DFL season, the winners of the match tournaments were posting 120+ fish scores, indicating they were catching 2 fish/min or more. The best I've done is 1 fish/min.

In fisheries management, there is a term "Catch per Unit Effort" (CPUE) which is used to assess angler success. I want to increase my CPUE to 2 fish/min. To get there, I want to know what has the most impact on my catches... the bait, the line, the hook, etc.

For my first trial, I decided to consider the hook, and specifically the smallest two 'float' type hooks. 

Methods

I fished using constant gear setups (this will be the plan for all my fishing.. only one thing should get varied at a time). The top two setups in the image below were the only equipment used, and only one rod was fished at a time.

Bait was kept constant as Pinkies, the line was Sunline Super FC Sniper 14lb, the reel was Sonik Tournos 10000, and the rod was Haichou Extreme (13ft). The two hooks tested were the Haichou Waggler 16, and the Haichou waggler 20. Remember that with fish hooks, the higher number is the smaller hook.

All fishing was done at the same spot on Grand Union canal, just off the weed beds in front of where my angler is standing in the picture below.

There were 4 replicates total... each was divided into 20 minute segments "A" and "B". I selected the which hook to fish first using a random number generator, selecting without replacement so that each hook had 2 A blocks and 2 B blocks. Time was kept using Alexa on an Amazon Echo device.

At the end of 20 minutes I recorded the species, weight, and length of each fish from the catch summary screen. After the A blocks I immediately started the B block. After the B block I backed out to the menu and re-entered free fishing mode. All fishing for this experiment was broadcast on my twitch channel.

Watch live video from tfernando77 on www.twitch.tv

Catch, weight, and average weight were assessed by two-factor ANOVA, using R. The threshold of statistical significance was set at 0.05.

Results

A total of 64 fish were caught over 160 minutes of fishing.

CPUE

The CPUE for the Waggler 16 hooks was 7.75 +- 1.71 fish per 20 minutes (Mean +- SD). The  CPUE for the Waggler 20 hooks was 8.25 +-2.87 fish per 20 minutes. The CPUE for time block A was 8.5 +- 1 fish per 20 minutes. The CPUE for time block B was 7.5 +- 3.11 fish per 20 minutes.

There was no significant difference in CPUE between the Waggler 16 and Waggler 20 hooks (F = 0.074, P = 0.799). There was no significant difference in CPUE between time block A and time block B (F = 0.296, P = 0.615). There was no significant interaction between hook size and time block (F = 0.667, P = 0.460)

Weight

The total weight of fish caught in each period for the Waggler 16 hooks was 44.98 +- 14.04 lbs (Mean +- SD). The total weight for the Waggler 20 hooks was 38.03 +- 22.43 lbs.

There was no significant difference in total weight caught between the Waggler 16 and Waggler 20 hooks (F = 0.279, P=0.626). There was no significant difference in total weight caught between time block A and time block B (F=0.105, P=0.762). There was no significant interaction between hook size and time block (F = 1.949, P=0.235).

Average Weight

The average weight of fish caught with Waggler 16 hooks was 5.74 +- 1.02 lbs (Mean+-SD). The average weight of fish caught with Waggler 20 hooks was 4.47 +- 1.47 lbs.

There was no significant difference in average weight between the Waggler 16 and Waggler 20 hooks (F = 1.874, P =0.243). There was no significant difference in average weight between time block A and time block B (F = 0.009, P = 0.930). There was no significant interaction between hook and time block (F = 1.368, P = 0.307).

Discussion

So, no significant differences found. If there is an effect, it's subtle. The graph for average weight sure seems to indicate that their might be an effect, with the smaller hook catching smaller fish. Of course, this trial used the two smallest hooks which were nearest to each other in size. That may have been poor planning, since that would be amongst the smallest of effects to detect (assuming its there).

I'm encouraged that there does not seem to be differences between time block A and time block B, since if there aren't I don't have to reset the simulation every 20 minutes. It's not entirely clear whether every fish in the lake is being modelled. If they are, or even every fish in the area, then it might be possible to "fish-out" a segment, in which case it will be necessary to move the baits around to keep up CPUE. If they're being generated on a micro scale, then it may be possible to find good locations and just keep pulling out fish.

I haven't collected enough data to assess the length-weight relations yet for any species, but that's coming, as is more gear comparisons.

We'll get to the bottom of these really heavy small fish!

Coming next, switching gears to Bluegill and Crappie for this week's match tournament on Lake Travis!