Enjoying Catch and Fishing Effort: The Effort Effect in Recreational Fisheries

Recreational fishermen derive utility from catch and fishing effort. Building our analysis on the Gordon-Clark model for renewable resources, we show that a lower importance of catch may result in higher catches. While this effect also holds under first-best management, it may destabilize open-access recreational fisheries to the point of stock collapse. Technical progress in recreational fisheries may mask such dynamics as it enables unaltered angler behavior and constant catches during stock declines.