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Quantitative relationships between river discharge and hydraulic habitat availability for key taxa are important elements of environmental flow assessment. We used radiotelemetry to examine diel patterns of habitat use by tracking the locations of 17 juvenile Sooty grunter (Hephaestus fuliginosus) over a 10‐day period during the late dry season in a river in the wet–dry tropics of northern Australia. Habitat use data were integrated with a hydrodynamic model to identify preferred hydraulic habitat and explore different river discharge scenarios to assess the potential effects of water abstraction on habitat availability. Sooty grunter exhibited a strong preference for shallow, fast flowing mesohabitat (riffles and runs). Hydraulic microhabitat preference was modelled using generalised additive mixed‐effect models (GAMMs) and showed no significant difference in microhabitat selection between day and night. Habitat criteria developed from a combined day‐night GAMM were defined as locations with velocities of 0.26–1.42 m s−1 and depths <0.69 m. Hydrodynamic modelling of river discharge scenarios in the study reach showed that the area of preferred habitat was highest at 8 m3 s−1, with large declines in habitat area under low flows (61% decline in habitat area at 0.5 m3 s−1 compared to the discharge of 2.8 m3 s−1 at the time of radio‐tracking). While the study focusses on a single species, our findings demonstrate the broad applicability of radiotelemetry as a means of quantifying the diel hydraulic habitat requirements of riverine fish to support the objective determination of environmental flow regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing awareness of the impact that recreational fishers can have on fish stocks has highlighted the paucity of information used to inform their management. Most of the available information on the scale and nature of recreational catch and effort has come from intermittent and labour‐intensive surveys that provide fragmented insights into often highly variable fisheries. Digital cameras offer a more cost‐effective means of continuously monitoring trends in recreational fishing effort, and it is surprising that greater use of this approach has not been made to date given its widespread use in other contexts. We share lessons learnt from four early adopter studies in New Zealand, Australia and Germany, where digital cameras have been used to monitor recreational fishing effort. Many of the challenges that we have encountered and overcome were initially unforeseen, and we suggest solutions and strategies to address these issues. We conclude that all aspects of a camera‐based monitoring system should be considered from the outset, to optimize the utility and value of the information they provide over the long term. Aspects to consider include the location and configuration of a camera system, ensuring service continuity, image quality, data storage, image interpretation and ultimately the analysis of any data collected. Robustly designed digital camera monitoring systems can be used to gain greater insight into recreational fishery dynamics, leading to more informed, responsive and effective fisheries management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]