Understanding anglers' preferences for fishing tournament characteristics and policies

Saltwater fishing tournaments in the United States are generally not regulated nor are there different fishing regulations for tournament and nontournament anglers. Although much is known about those who participate in fishing tournaments in terms of their fishing motivations, attitudes, and characteristics, much less is known at the angler population level regarding their preferences for tournament opportunities. Using a stated preference choice model with hypothetical scenarios to simulate participation choices and understand preferences, study objectives were to identify angler preferences for various types of tournament fishing "products." Four tournament policy characteristics were investigated: promotion of catch and release, bait restrictions, whether a percentage of the tournament entrance fee should go to support fishery management activities, and whether a tournament should be a nonprofit or profit-making venture. Three expectation attributes were inserted: tournament size, trip cost per day, and whether a tournament is family friendly. We sent seven different versions of the mail questionnaire to 1,633 anglers. Of 795 returns, 648 were used for estimating conditional logit models. Analysis indicated that a scenario with no management interventions was not most preferred. Anglers most preferred a conservation-oriented option that introduced additional management measures. Overall, scenarios with management interventions were more favored than the status quo situation (with no management interventions). Although respondents showed reluctance to adopt other management-related options, results generally indicated they were increasingly concerned with sustainability of fish stocks and potential conflicts between tournament and nontournament users and preferred tournament products that reflect these concerns.