Fishing is an important source of recreational, cultural, and economic activity, as well as a source of desired local fish, for the residents of guam

Development, population pressure, commercial fishing, land based sources of sediment, global warming, and high fishing pressure have adversely affected local fish stocks. These have resulted in guam s current state of overfishing with its bottom fish fishery, an increase in the number of fishing grounds with low fish stocks, an absence of large terminal species, and a shift towards harvesting juvenile pulse fisheries and small less desired reef species. This negative trend, when validated by fishery data, required management efforts such as establishing marine preserve areas, a BAN on scuba, and an annual catch limit , all which are slowly enabling fish stocks to recover. IT is, therefore, important to continue a long-term scientifically collected data program in order to observe for trends and shifts that negatively affect recreational fishing. The offshore fisheries program provides this type of data. Composed of 96 boat-based surveys and 24 boat-based participation surveys each year the data is analyzed with the assistance of the national marine fisheries service in hawaii, to obtain participation, effort, catch, and cpue values. These values, when combined with data from years past, provide a time series that is used to determine the status of guam s fish stocks.