In many developed countries the focus of fisheries management has widened to include not only the activities of commercial operators, but also those of recreation anglers. As a consequence there is a growing need for information about the preferences, motives, and values of anglers. This information is needed by managers to help formulate policies for conserving stocks and also for reallocating fish stocks between user groups. This paper critically reviews the random utility model as a technique for describing recreation demand, and shows how the model can be incorporated into a framework for simulating the impacts of various policies over time.