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Dr. Harold Schramm, Jr.

Dr. Harold (Hal) Schramm began his career in Vicksburg working for the US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station (1977-1979), and has worked in Starkville, MS for the US Geological Survey /Mississippi State University Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit from 1993-2017. In the interim, he worked in several locations in the Southeast including Florida, Texas, and District of Columbia. During his 40+ year career he has made substantial and meaningful contributions to fisheries management and ecology, education, and public outreach that when taken cumulatively constitute a monumental contribution to the fisheries management profession. Hal's work on recreational fisheries management has been directed at sportfish population management and the multidisciplinary interface between resource users (e.g., anglers, tournament organizations) and fish population management. He was among the first fishery researchers to measure post-release mortality of tournament-caught black bass and to assess relationships among mortality and environmental factors. His work on competitive fishing is well known by both fisheries managers and fishing tournament organizers. The methods he developed for measuring post-release mortality are the standard method, and the mechanisms that cause delayed mortality identified in his studies have been repeatedly supported by subsequent physiological research. You cannot read an article on tournament mortality and not find citations of Hal's work. He co-authored two popular publications on tournament fish care, the latest, Keeping Bass Alive, A guidebook for Anglers and Tournament Organizers, published by the Bass Anglers Sportsman's Society is considered the benchmark text among anglers, tournament directors, and state fishery management agencies. His work also includes angler and fishery manager opinion surveys in Mississippi and Texas. Additionally, he has worked on the development and implementation of urban fishing programs at both local and national scales. All of these contributions have served to guide recreational fisheries management both in the United States and internationally. Hal has also spent a substantial part of his career on large river research focused on the Lower Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tombigbee rivers. This program area has included studies at spatial scales from macro-habitats to entire floodplain rivers. His research has led to models of floodplain-river function that have been used to advance river ecology, guide management and restoration, and funnel further research. On the Lower Mississippi River, he developed methods to collect, tag, and monitor endangered pallid sturgeon, and to define their habitat. Hal pioneered the use of otoliths for aging freshwater fish, developed marginal increment analysis as a means of validation, and developed a procedure for obtaining accurate measurements for back calculation of lengths from otoliths.

He has served as a co-editor for Fisheries Management and Ecology, co-edited two AFS proceedings including Uses and Effects of Cultured Fishes (AFS Symposium 15), and Catfish 2000: Proceedings of the International Ictalurid Symposium (AFS Symposium 24), as well as a Blackwell book entitled Global Challenges in Recreational Fisheries. He served as Associate Editor for the North American Journal of Fisheries Management and on the editorial board of Reviews in Fisheries Science. He has served as president of the Fisheries Management Section of AFS, was a founder and first chairperson of the Competitive Fishing Committee of the Fisheries Management and Administrators sections of AFS.

Hal has taught Fish Ecology, Fisheries Science, and Fisheries Management at Florida, Texas Tech, and Mississippi State. He has advised both undergraduate and graduate students, and directed theses and dissertations for over 30 graduate students. He has contributed chapters to AFS' Inland Fisheries Management in North America (both 2"d and 3rd editions) and Scientific Communication for Natural Resource Professionals. He has also written popular articles for fishing publications and Internet websites. Since 1996 he has averaged 8-10 articles per year in magazines such as North American Fisherman, In-Fisherman, FL W Outdoors, and BASS Times. He has strived to convey important research findings in the realm of fisheries science and management, not just his own but that of other researchers, to the angling public in non-technical language. Hal has been featured in segments of the North American Fisherman-TV series entitled "Doc Talk." Hal is also an avid angler with a true passion for the sport.