Effects of Catfish Angler Catch-Related Attitudes on Fishing Trip Preferences

To assist the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in developing a statewide catfish management plan, we surveyed 1,078 freshwater catfish anglers to examine their catch-related attitudes and trip preferences by using a stated choice experiment. Respondents were presented with a series of paired hypothetical fishing trip scenarios for catfish and were asked to choose the trips that they most preferred. Trip scenarios varied by the relative number of catfish that were caught and harvested, relative size of catfish that were caught, water body type, level of site development, and distance traveled (i.e., representing travel costs). A conditional logit model was fitted to analyze angler preferences by determining the influence of trip attributes on angler choice. Model results indicated that anglers’ choice of fishing trips was most influenced by distance traveled, followed by the catch-related aspects of the trip, with catfish size having a greater influence than the numbers of catfish caught or harvested. We then conducted a latent class analysis of catfish anglers, which involved the use of cluster analysis to assign anglers to five groups based on their catch-related attitude scores, and we reran the stated choice model for each cluster. Clusters ranged from harvest-oriented anglers to size-oriented anglers that were focused on catching large trophy fish. Results from these models can assist fisheries managers in setting management goals and objectives that best meet the needs of their clientele. Received December 17, 2012; accepted June 27, 2013