Demand for fishery regulations: Effects of angler heterogeneity and catch improvements on preferences for gear and harvest restrictions

Allocating limited funds across competing management actions to generate the fisheries improvements most desired by anglers requires in-depth knowledge of angler preferences for aspects of the fishing experience. Characterizing angler preferences in terms of a probability distribution, rather than simply a population mean, provides fisheries managers with insights into how preferences vary across the population of anglers. This is particularly important with respect to fishing regulations, for which anglers may have strong yet diverse preferences. To examine angler preferences and how these preferences vary across the population of trout anglers, we estimated a random parameters logit model of trout fishing site choice using data from a mail and internet administered choice experiment of Michigan trout anglers (response rate—44.6%). We found that, even though on average trout anglers do not prefer fishing at sites with the most strict fishing regulations (Catch and Release Only and Artificial Flies Only; p < 0.01), about 18% and 26% of anglers do prefer sites with these regulations (all else equal). We then exploit positive and statistically significant (p < 0.01) mean preferences for trout catch rates and sizes to examine how sites with regulations that result in offsetting catch-related improvements can increase the proportion of anglers preferring such sites. These results can help improve trout fishery management by focusing scarce resources on the improvement of the most-preferred catch-related attributes, while understanding how anglers are affected by gear and harvest regulations.