Overflight monitoring observations of recreational fishing activity on the South Coast of British Columbia

These data provide the coordinates of recreational fishing boats sighted from aerial surveys as part of the Fisheries and Oceans Canada South Coast Area Creel program to estimate recreational fishing catch and effort. The recreational boats are classed as 1) fishing, or 2) running. Aerial surveys are conducted from float planes approximately every 3-7 days during the peak fishing season according to weather and resource availability. Digitization of the boat sightings began in recent years and complete datasets are available beginning in 2021.

The aerial surveys provide a snaphot of recreational fishing effort limited to the short interval the plane was passing overhead and should not be construed as total fishing effort. Due to the volume of fishing activity in some areas, each point represents one or more boats in approximately the same area. The resolution of the observation points is decided by the survey observer. Locations and boat counts are subject to observer error. The total number of boats observed is related to the number and timing of successful aerial surveys which vary seasonally and regionally. As such, results are not directly comparable across regions or time periods.

Datasets available for download

• Overflight monitoring observationsCSV
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• Data Dictionary EnglishCSV
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• Data Dictionary FrenchCSV
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• Overflight monitoring observationsZIP
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• Fisheries
• Fisheries management
• Nature and Environment
• Science and Technology
• commercial fishing
• fishing effort
• orcas
• recreational fishing
• whales

Additional Info

• Maturity Level 1 (54%)
• Maturity Level 2 (31%)
• Maturity Level 3 (0%)
• Maturity Level 4 (0%)
• Maturity Level 5 (0%)
• Maturity Level 6 (0%)

Field	Value
Last Updated	October 20, 2025, 02:31 (UTC)
Created	October 20, 2025, 02:31 (UTC)
Domain / Topic Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.	Biota
Title Title for the Dataset.	Overflight monitoring observations of recreational fishing activity on the South Coast of British Columbia
Description A description of the dataset.	These data provide the coordinates of recreational fishing boats sighted from aerial surveys as part of the Fisheries and Oceans Canada South Coast Area Creel program to estimate recreational fishing catch and effort. The recreational boats are classed as 1) fishing, or 2) running. Aerial surveys are conducted from float planes approximately every 3-7 days during the peak fishing season according to weather and resource availability. Digitization of the boat sightings began in recent years and complete datasets are available beginning in 2021. The aerial surveys provide a snaphot of recreational fishing effort limited to the short interval the plane was passing overhead and should not be construed as total fishing effort. Due to the volume of fishing activity in some areas, each point represents one or more boats in approximately the same area. The resolution of the observation points is decided by the survey observer. Locations and boat counts are subject to observer error. The total number of boats observed is related to the number and timing of successful aerial surveys which vary seasonally and regionally. As such, results are not directly comparable across regions or time periods.
Tags / Keywords Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.	Fisheries Fisheries management Nature and Environment Science and Technology commercial fishing fishing effort orcas recreational fishing whales
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc) File format of the dataset.
Dataset Size Dataset size in megabytes.
Metadata Identifier Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
Published Date Published date of the dataset.	2025-04-29
Time Period Data Span (start date) Start date of the data in the dataset.
Time Period Data Span (end date) End date of time data in the dataset.
GeoSpatial Area Data Span A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.

Field	Value
Access category Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
License License used to access the dataset.	Open Government Licence - Canada
Limits on use Limits on use of data.
Location Location of the dataset.	https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/9c8cf8a6-7c19-450a-88be-3a1d3ce61677
Data Service Data service for accessing a dataset.
Owner Owner of the dataset.	Fisheries and Oceans Canada | Pêches et Océans Canada
Contact Point Who to contact regarding access?	Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division/South Coast Area Stock Assessment, [email protected]
Contact Point Email The email to contact regarding access?
Publisher Publisher of the dataset.
Publisher Email Email of the publisher.
Author Author of the dataset.
Author Email Email of the author.
Accessed At Date the data and metadata was accessed.

Field	Value
Identifier Unique identifier for the dataset.
Language Language(s) of the dataset
Link to dataset description A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
Persistent Identifier Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
Globally Unique Identifier Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
Contains data about individuals Does the data hold data about individuals?
Contains data about identifiable individuals Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
Contains Indigenous Data Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
Portal Type Platform type of the source portal.

Field	Value
Version Version of the datatset	None
Source Source of the dataset.	None
Version notes Version notes about the dataset.
Is version of another dataset Link to dataset that it is a version of.
Other versions Link to datasets that are versions of it.
Provenance Text Provenance Text of the data.
Provenance URL Provenance URL of the data.
Temporal resolution Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
GeoSpatial resolution in meters Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions) Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.

Field	Value
Indigenous Community Permission Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
Community Permission Community permission (who gave permission).
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about Indigenous communities from which data is derived.

Field	Value
Number of data rows If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
Number of data columns If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
Number of data cells If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
Number of data relations If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
Number of entities If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
Number of data properties If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
Data quality Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
Metric for data quality A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.

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