To promote sustainable sport fisheries on the Great Lakes by developing educational information of use to the Great Lakes charter industry and key leaders in the Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes Charter industry is an excellent case study of a water dependent, resource based, tourism business that can have significant economic impact in small coastal communities. The charter industry provides important angler access to sport fishing in the Great Lakes. Charter captains are important "gatekeepers" of angling information and may have valuable insight into angler issues, fishery concerns and social values that should be incorporated into fishery management decisions. Leaders who understand the needs, issues and business conditions of the Great Lakes charter industry will be better prepared to work to help improve the viability of this important sport fishing sector.

Leaders interested in Great Lakes fishery issues need to understand the biological basis for fish production in the natural waters of the Great Lakes. This module is an attempt to reduce the biological information and understanding gap between key users of the resource and biologists who manage the resource.

We intend to survey the Great Lakes charter industry in order to describe the industry and the environment in which it operates. We will analyze the 2002 business conditions of Great Lakes charter firms and compare and contrast the data from the 2002 season with results from our previous 1994 Great Lakes wide charter survey. A baseline survey of the Lake Champlain Charter industry will also be conducted and separately analyzed. Ohio (Frank Lichtkoppler) will provide the leadership for conducting this survey with the assistance of New York, Michigan, Lake Champlain and the other Great Lakes Sea Grant programs. Funds for faculty time, survey development, implementation, postage, expendable supplies, publications, reports, and travel are included.

Ohio will take the lead in developing concise informational products based on an introductory aquatic science curriculum now being used at Ohio State's F.T. Stone Laboratory located on Gibraltar Island in Lake Erie's western basin. This includes basic food web science, base of the food web impacts on fish, benthic organisms & fish interactions, basic fish biology, and beginning fish identification. Current Great Lakes science, case studies, and current issues will be included. To the greatest extent possible the use of existing materials will be encouraged. All Great Lakes Sea Grant programs and many of our federal agency partners (such as NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory) will provide input into this module. Funds for faculty time, travel and publications are included.

Lead by Ohio Sea Grant, the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network programs surveyed the Great Lakes charter-fishing captains during October 2002 to April 2003 using a modified Dillman mail survey technique. A total of 868 captains returned surveys with usable data for a response rate of over 49%. This survey is directly comparable to the 1994 Great Lakes charter captain survey and earlier charter captains surveys conducted in the 1980's. (Lichtkoppler, Jun 2003)

Fred Snyder developed the Aquatic Science module for the Great Lakes Fishery Leadership Institute. This module was part of the GLFLI participants notebook of educational materials. Snyder also produced a CD for all of the Ohio GLFLI participants containing the power point presentations made by Sea Grant and ODNR educators at the Ohio GLFLI workshop.