There are increasing demands for Australian fisheries management agencies to demonstrate that fisheries under their jurisdiction are being managed in accordance with the principles of ecologically sustainable development (ESD).  The decision-making processes of the ESD management framework requires, amongst other things, the establishment of specific and measurable objectives and performance indicators for the management of fisheries, both commercial and recreational.  This study focused on the development of methods to assist in evaluating the effectiveness of alternative management controls in addressing these objectives.  Methods were developed for conducting a priori and a posteriori evaluations of the effectiveness of alternative legal minimum length (LML) and daily bag limit (DBL) management options in controlling fishing mortality (F) in marine recreational scale fisheries. These methods were then illustrated using case studies involving three southern Australian scalefish species: black bream, snapper and King George whiting.  A predictive age-structured model was developed to assess the likely impacts of LML changes using the Sydenham Inlet and Gippsland Lakes black bream fisheries as examples.  A model for assessing the likely effects of alternative DBLs was illustrated using information from the snapper and King George whiting fisheries in Port Phillip Bay and Western Port bay, and the black bream recreational fishery in the Gippsland Lakes.  The effects of three LML changes previously applied to the black bream fishery in the Gippsland Lakes were also assessed.