Analysis of Motive and Participation Differences between Saltwater Sport and Tournament Fishermen

Numerous descriptive studies of fishermen have been conducted. Motives, attitudes, and behavior of fishermen have been examined. These studies have confirmed the nonexistence of the average fisherman. They disclosed, instead, considerable diversity between and among fishermen and their activities. Few studies, however, have focused on this diversity, despite an emerging literature indicating fisherman diversity to be an important concern for fishery managers in allocating resources among competing interests. We empirically tested for and examined differences in motivation between Texas saltwater sport anglers and saltwater tournament fishermen, particularly those differences in measures of catch‐related and noncatch motivation. Tournament fishermen rated the importance of catch‐related motives significantly higher than did sport fishermen. Both groups rated equally high the importance attached to noncatch motives as reasons for fishing. Tournament fishermen considered themselves more skilled, believed they caught more fish, put more of their effort into fishing for a particular species, and fished more frequently than sport fishermen. Tournament fishermen, therefore, can be labeled as catch‐oriented relative to sport fishermen. This distinction between the two groups of fishermen has implications for fisheries managers because tournament fishermen and sport fishermen likely will respond differently to various policy changes, particularly those changes related to a reduction in permissible catch.