Fishers have detailed knowledge of their resources, their environment, and
their fishing practices that is rarely systematically collected. We conduct
ed three types of interviews with coastal Newfoundland fishers to identify
the range of information available, to see if it could be quantified, and t
o explore its potential for reconstructing trends within fisheries. These f
ishers have many terms for Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), each associated wit
h characteristic patterns of seasonal movement and availability to gear and
indicating the location of several coastal spawning areas. They described
a variety of changes in fishing practice. Of the four changes that could be
quantified, all contributed to decadal-scale increases in catch efficiency
prior to 1992, while change in catch per unit of effort for cod was consis
tently negative at decadal scales. For these fishers' lumpfish (Cyclopterus
lumpus) roe fishery, catch per unit of effort was consistently negative in
the 1990s. We describe ways to access the large reservoir of information h
eld by fishers, the use of several cross-checks to identify consistent patt
erns, and the use of trends and patterns to broaden the basis for interpret
ing quantitative surveys used in fisheries assessment. Local information fr
om resource users can be assembled in forms usable in quantitative stock as
sessments.