North American Journal of Fisheries Management 33:965–976, 2013 C  American Fisheries Society 2013 ISSN: 0275-5947 print / 1548-8675 online DOI: 10.1080/02755947.2013.822443 ARTICLE Effects of Catfish Angler Catch-Related Attitudes on Fishing Trip Preferences Clifford P. Hutt* and Kevin M. Hunt Human Dimensions and Conservation Law Enforcement Laboratory, Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Mississippi State University, Box 9690, Mississippi State, Mississippi 39762, USA J. Warren Schlechte and David L. Buckmeier Texas Parks and Wildlife, Heart of the Hills Fisheries Science Center, 5103 Junction Highway, Mountain Home, Texas 78058, USA Abstract 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. Freshwater catfish species (Channel Catfish Ictalurus punc- tatus, Blue Catfish I. furcatus, and Flathead Catfish Pylodictis olivaris) have not traditionally been the focus of most inland fisheries agencies (Michaletz and Dillard 1999). However, this is changing in many of the states where catfish are frequently targeted by anglers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that in 2006, 1.035 million (56%) Texas anglers spent 11.6 mil- lion days pursuing catfish—more than any other species of fish. This interest in fishing for catfish has prompted the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) to initiate a plan to guide cat- fish management and research activities. One important element needed for the successful management of catfish is to understand the desires and motivations of Texas’ catfish anglers (Kellert *Corresponding author: cliffordhutt@gmail.com Received December 17, 2012; accepted June 27, 2013 and Brown 1985; Connelly et al. 1990; Fisher 1997). Previous studies of catfish anglers have examined preferred fishing lo- cations (Wilde and Riechers 1994; Schramm et al. 1999; Reitz and Travnichek 2008), consumption and regulations (Wilde and Riechers 1994), and angler motivations (Fedler and Ditton 1994; Wilde and Ditton 1999). Although these previous studies were useful, there were concerns that the studies were oversimpli- fied. Typically, respondents were asked single-item questions to rate the importance of individual characteristics of the angling experience. Anglers were rarely asked to make explicit trade- offs, and there was no good way to quantify such trade-offs. The TPWD decided that a new approach was needed to address these shortcomings. 965 Downloaded by [Mississippi State University Libraries] at 07:45 24 September 2013