Abstract

Recreational fishing tournaments have long been key events in many different regions, countries, and fisheries. These tournaments expose people to unique fisheries as well as bring economic gain to areas hosting the tournaments. Arguably the most prestigious and lucrative of these recreational fishing tournaments are those centered around blue marlin fishing. In these tournaments, participants can win money by either catching and releasing the most blue marlin or weighing the heaviest blue marlin. For example, tournaments such as the White Marlin Open and Bisbee’s Black and Blue offer win-nings near and above one million dollars for first place. The Gulf Coast Triple Crown (GCTC) is a series of five blue mar-lin tournaments in the northern Gulf of Mexico. For the GCTC tournaments, blue marlin are allowed to be killed for the potential to win large amounts of money, often between $200,000 and $300,000. In order to be killed in a GCTC tourna-ment, a blue marlin has to reach a minimum length of 107 inches, also known as the size limit. The size limit in these tour-naments still allow smaller blue marlin to be weighed that will not win any prize money or place on the leaderboard and are wasted. From a recreational standpoint, blue marlin fishing is mostly catch and release. Therefore, killing a fish that does not win any prize money is a waste because normally that fish would have been released and continued to contribute to the growth of the stock. By increasing the size limit, this waste can potentially be reduced. However, changing the size limit has implications from a social, economic, and biological standpoint. This project analyzed catch data from the tournaments for the past five years as well as interviews with tournamentdirectors, fishermen, and people of the industry to determine the best size limit to reduce waste.

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