Abstract

Saltwater fishing tournaments have proliferated in number in recent years. Fishing tournaments in Texas are not regulated nor are there different fishing regulations for tournament and non-tournament anglers. As prize money and the number of events as well as their impacts have increased, some anglers have expressed the need for increased regulation of tournaments and their participants. The objectives of this study were to better understand the problems involved in saltwater fishing tournaments, to identify tournament and non-tournament angler preferences for possible fishing regulations, and to examine within group differences in attitudes, opinions, and preferences regarding salt water tournament issues. A stated preference choice approach, which uses hypothetical scenarios to derive individuals’ preferences, provides an understanding of the relationships of multiple factors as they contribute to preferences or choice behavior. Using seven different management and expectation attributes (i.e., catch and release, bait restriction, tournament entrance fee, tournament type, trip cost, family event, and tournament size), we generated 56 choice sets. The mail survey was conducted with seven different versions of the questionnaire and each questionnaire had eight choice sets. From the conditional logit estimation, all primary attributes of angler preference were statistically significant. Not surprisingly, fishing participation was preferred to no participation in tournaments, but anglers strongly favored tournaments where catch and release behavior was promoted, where there were no bait restrictions, and tournaments were held by non-profit organizations rather than by other entities. Likewise, anglers showed a strong preference for tournaments with a greater variety of family events held, fewer numbers of tournament participants, and where a higher percentage of the tournament fee went to the management agency to support fishery management costs. We used scenario analysis to gain additional insights to angler behavior and preferences as a part of tournament management decision-making.

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