Collection

Sea Angling in the UK reports

Reports on the participation, catches and economic impact of sea anglers resident in the UK

From:
Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science
Published
23 July 2021
Last updated
29 July 2024 — See all updates

Sea angling is a popular activity in the UK that has social and economic benefits, but can also impact on fish stocks. Data on sea angling participation, catches, and economics are needed by government and stakeholders to support well-informed decisions and sustainable management of fisheries.

Currently, estimates are generated each year for the whole of the UK. Two separate surveys are combined to achieve this:

  • An existing nationwide survey of UK residents (Watersports Participation Survey) is used to estimate fishing effort in terms of how many people go recreational sea fishing, and how often they use different methods.

  • A nationwide panel of sea anglers is recruited and use a bespoke diary app and online tool to record to complete a diary recording all their sea angling activities and catches during the year, from which the average catch per unit effort is calculated.

If you are interested in signing up to be part of the diary panel, and get free use of the app, please visit www.seaangling.org.

The links below are to the reports produced about sea angling in the UK from the current programme and contain detailed descriptions of the methods and outcomes from the survey.

Documents

Updates to this page

Published 23 July 2021
Last updated 29 July 2024 + show all updates

  1. A new document "Sea angling in the UK report 2016 to 2021" has been added to the page

  2. First published.

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