The ocean fishery is an example of a common property resource industry. Behavior of commercial fishermen is determined by a complex set of economic, environmental and social factors. All of these factors contribute to the individual fisherman's success. Fishermen learn to cope with the variability inherent to their occupation. Two strategies are observed in fishing behavior: The specialist who operates exclusively in one fishery and the generalist who readily switches fisheries according to market, social or management considerations. Traditional fishery models formulated to predict the behavior of fishermen have focused on the specialist. Smith and McKelvey (1986) and McKelvey (1983, 1987) have provided analyses to suggest these two fishing strategies may co-exist in a fluctuating environment. The purpose of this study is to analyze the Oregon trawl fisheries for the presence of diversification in strategy selection. To gather the data necessary for testing the hypotheses, interviews were conducted in the trawl fisheries of Oregon, June through December 1985. Three groups of fishermen are identified according to strategy selection. Nominal effort differences and capital-to-income ratios are examined for each strategy type. Additional analysis is done to look at the components of income determination through regression analysis. Discriminant analysis is used to examine the fishermen's attitudes toward switching, risk and management concerns. Among the findings of this research is that specialists and generalists do exist but they cannot adequately characterized by exclusively economic measures. Attitudes shown on the part of the fishermen indicate they feel that management is a significant factor contributing to income variability and strategy selection. / Graduation date: 1988