Encountering a bait is necessary but insufficient to explain individual variability in vulnerability to angling in two freshwater benthivorous fish in the wild

Fish personality traits, such as swimming activity, or personality related emergent behavioural properties, such as space use, should affect encounter rates between fish and fishing gear. Increased encounters should in turn drive vulnerability to capture by passively operated fishing gears. However, empirical evidence documenting a relationship between activity-based behaviours and vulnerability to capture in the wild is limited. Using whole-lake acoustic telemetry, we first documented significant repeatabilities over several months of a suite of encounter rate-associated behaviours (swimming distance, activity space size, time on baited feeding sites, switching frequency among baited feeding sites, distance to the lake bottom) in two recreationally important benthivorous cyprinid species, the common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and tench (Tinca tinca). We then experimentally targeted both species using standard angling gear on baited feeding sites. Individual fish regularly visited the angl...