Valuing Recreational Fishing in the Great Lakes

We estimated a pair of models to characterize the demand for Great Lakes recreational fishing in Michigan. With a nested logit framework, the models tested whether anglers have an unobserved tendency to substitute between fishing sites based on target species or lake-specific preferences. Results indicated that anglers tend to substitute more readily between sites within a lake, although we found that the choice of model did not qualitatively influence measures of nonmarket value. Both models predicted that the fishing destinations of anglers would be strongly influenced by catch rates. Using these results, we estimated the sportfishing value for several fish species and found that anglers have the highest willingness to pay for Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha, Coho Salmon O. kisutch, steelhead O. mykiss, and Walleyes Sander vitreus. We also derived the access values of Michigan's coastal fishing sites and determined that day trips to a typical Great Lake site are worth about $30 per trip.