This paper discusses how spatially appropriate management can be implemented in fisheries through user-participation in management. This is examined using a case-study of the Victorian abalone fishery. The central and western regions of this fishery have developed a reef-scale approach to management; an arrangement whereby resource users collaborate with fishery scientists and government managers to set harvest rules at finer spatial scales than feasible under a government system alone. Drawing on the extensive body of work on common-pool resource theory, rational-choice models of human behaviour and the emerging concept of social capital, the present paper examines the social factors that underlie the development of such an arrangement. The abalone fishery, when viewed from this social science perspective, seems to be highly suited to collective action, with a small group of resource users and a resource that is suited to relatively well-developed property rights. The role of government in such arrangements is also important, and it is suggested the formal power of management agencies can be synergistic with user-derived rules. The iterative, ongoing nature of the collaborative process is also important, but pertinently suggests that developing the capacity for management can be a lengthy process, heavily reliant on the building of social capital.