Accurate and long-term fisheries data are vital for fisheries managers to understand and
manage fisheries effectively. Only a few inland waters have such data. This is often due to the
difficulty and high cost as well as low priority given by governments to data collection activities.
Besides accuracy, practicality and cost are also important considerations when designing fishery data collection systems. A data set from the fishery of Jebba Lake in Niger State, North-central of Nigeria, was used to assess how low cost, yet accurate, fisheries data collection can be achieved. Simulations of reducing the frequency of the annual inventory of fishery manpower and crafts (frame survey) and of lowering the sampling effort of monthly fish catch and fishing activities (catch assessment survey) were made. The effect of the reductions on daily catch, fishing activity and yield estimate was then determined. Reducing the number of sampling days was reduced from four to two per month. Problems of obtained accurate and long-term fisheries data from tropical inland waters were discussed