FEWER FISH, FEWER FISHING TRIPS

 

Fishing Tackle Retailer, a trade publication for the fishing and boating industries, recently reported on an American Sportfishing Association study that indicated reduced recreational fishing activity in 2025.

The publication quoted Glenn Hughes, ASA’s president and chief executive officer, who said that

“While trendline data still shows growth in the past decade, keeping anglers engaged in fishing continues to be a struggle, with 19 million people dropping from the sport in 2025—the highest rate of ‘churn’ on record,”

and goes on to explain that

“catching fish isn’t the only reason Americans went fishing.  They also fished to enjoy nature, escape everyday stress and spend time with family and friends.”

At the same time,

“dissatisfaction with time on the water stemmed from crowded fishing spots and discomfort from being outdoors, not catching fish, unclean waters, and the cost of gear.”

We need to be careful not to make too much out of a single year’s data; fishing activity declined in 2021, too, but soon began increasing again.  And the 2025 decline only reduced the total number of anglers by about 1.5%, from 59.9 to 59.0 million people.  Salt water fishing even increased by 400,000 people—about 2.6%--the fourth year of record-breaking participation.

Still, the record-high “churn” level—the number of former anglers who left the sport in 2025—is probably significant, and ought not be shrugged off.  And although the overall number of salt water fishermen may be increasing, in some places, the trend is definitely headed in the opposite direction.

The issue came up at the May 16 meeting of New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council, where a Department of Environmental Conservation biologist presented data showing that

“Shore fishing and private or rental boat fishing account for the majority of trips each year.  Total trips increase from about 12 million in 2021 to a peak of 16.5 million in 2022, then decline to approximately 11.5 million in 2025,”

thus following about the same pattern revealed in the ASA report.

A similar pattern appeared in New Jersey, which along with NewYork sees the highest number of fishing trips anywhere in the upper mid-Atlantic and southern New England region, although New Jersey’s peak occurred one year later, in 2023.  However, Massachusetts and Rhode Island anglers took somewhat more trips in 2025 than they did in 2021; Connecticut saw fewer trips in 2025 than it did in 2021, but reached its near-time low in 2024.

Still, the overall message was that there was a lot less fishing going on in 2025 than there was a few years earlier.

Fishing industry representatives on the Council challenged the apparent decline in fishing effort.

“Councilor Squeri [who chronically refuses to accept any data produced by the Marine Recreational Information Program] asked if the 2020 numbers were available, he was interested in the harvest and trip numbers.  Ms. Sysak [the DEC biologist] replied that in 2020 the total harvest was almost the same as for 2021 and effort was almost as high as 2022.  Mr. Squeri said that the numbers don’t make sense so far as effort is concerned.  During Covid in 2020, yes, he can see the number being so high but in 2022, life was getting back to normal so for him, these numbers don’t represent what was really going on in the world.  If you look at the charter boat in 2023, it’s showing 18,042; compare it to the surrounding years, in 2022 the number is 96,929 and in 2024, the number is 73,270.  He always believes that when you put bad numbers in, you get bad numbers back.  These numbers are saying ‘red flag’ to him…

“To Councilor Dearborn, who owns a bait and tackle shop [actually, a large bait an tackle wholesale operation], the numbers seem wrong.  She would say 2020 would have had the highest numbers because of COVID, fishing was an activity that families could do together at a time when everyone was distancing themselves from each other, the numbers should reflect the highest of numbers and to see 2022 showing the highest numbers, the sales in her shop do not justify that.  The numbers in her shop show a downward trend since 2020.”

But now, we see an ASA study, based on what the Association calls

“the most comprehensive research on fishing participation, providing an annual assessment of angler demographics, participation and motivations from more than 18,000 respondents,”

showing trends similar to those derived from MRIP data, although the ASA’s primary trend of decreasing angler activity doesn’t seem to apply to salt water fishing, at least on a coastwide basis.

Perhaps the recreational fishing and boating industries ought to be paying more attention to the study’s conclusion that “dissatisfaction with time on the water stemmed from…not catching fish,” among other things.  Because when I started writing this blog, more than a dozen year ago, one of the first things I observed was that, if you want to have a fishing industry, either commercial or recreational, it helps to have fish.

Yet whether we’re talking about a local tackle shop or a trade organization like the ASA, the recreational fishing industry has, for the most part, opposed conservation measures or, at best, tried to minimize needed restrictions on the recreational fishery, in order to maintain or increase the current level of sales.

It’s possible that we’ve finally reached that point where such tactics prove counterproductive.

Striped bass might provide the clearest example.

Back in the early 1980s, the striped bass stock had collapsed after years of poor spawns in the Chesapeake Bay.  In 1984, the year before an effective rebuilding program was adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, anglers took fewer than 1.8 million trips primarily targeting the species.  That number increased to 13.0 million trips in 1995, when the striped bass stock was deemed to be rebuilt, then leapt to 23.4 million in 2004, when the striped bass spawning stock biomass peaked.  But since then, as the stock declined, angler effort declined as well.  In 2014, after a benchmark stock assessment found that spawning stock biomass was below target and while the fishing mortality rate had risen above its target level, angler effort had dropped to 19.3 million trips.  Five years later, a new benchmark assessment found that the stock had become overfished; by then, the number of trips primarily targeting bass had dropped even farther, to 15.8 million trips.

Since then, as striped bass abundance waned, the number of striped bass trips has continued to decline.

On the afternoon of August 5, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will review, and almost certainly adopt, the Review of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) 2025 Fishing Year.  That document notes the sharp decline in recreational striped bass fishing effort, saying

“the number of trips directed at striped bass (primary and secondary target) decreased in the Ocean in 2025 and increased in the Chesapeake Bay.  In 2025, the number of striped bass directed trips in the Chesapeake Bay region increased by about 52% compared to 2024, but is still the second lowest in the past decade behind only 2024.  The number of striped bass directed trips in the Ocean declined by about 12% from 2024.  Overall, the total number of striped bass directed trips decreased by 7% from 2024 and is the lowest number of directed trips in the past decade.”

At 13.9 million directed striped bass trips, 2025 didn’t just see “the lowest number of directed trips in the past decade,” but the lowest number in about 30 years.

The review of the 2025 fishing year offers a number of possible reasons for the decline in effort, and makes one comment that ought to remain at the forefront of everyone’s mind, whether they are fisheries managers or commenting on the striped bass management process:

“Angler effort and behavior are also important to consider.  When more fish are available in the fishery, effort can often increase in response.  When narrower size limits are in place or less fish are available in the fishery, anglers may change their behavior and level of effort.”

Given what seems to be a clear link between striped bass abundance and angling effort, it would seem somewhat surprising that industry groups such as the American Sportfishing Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association, and Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, along with organizations that tend to move in lockstep with the industry, such as the Coastal Conservation Association and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, opposed a 12% reduction in striped bass fishing mortality at the October 2025 meeting of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, apparently prioritizing short-term merchandise sales over a potentially long-term drop in effort that could significantly reduce income over a longer period of time.

It’s not clear that all, or even most, of the lost striped bass effort is being redirected into other fisheries.  Instead, much of that seems to suggest a resultant decline in overall angler participation.

If we look at New York in 2019, the last year before COVID-19 disrupted people’s lives and arguably distorted recreational fishing activity, we find that anglers took an estimated 13,411,743 fishing trips in that year.  Something like 3,367,601 of those trips—about 25.1%--primarily targeted striped bass, with summer flounder, bluefish, and scup, the next most popular species, together accounting for another 41%.

Although none of those other three species are in as dire straits as striped bass, it’s probably important to note that the summer flounder spawning stock biomass is at about 82% of its target level, largely due to a decade and a half of below-average recruitment, while bluefish are in the last stages of a rebuilding plan needed to restore a once-overfished stock, so neither population is at optimum levels of abundance.  Only scup, with a spawning stock biomass close to three times its target level, has been widely available to anglers in recent years.

New York anglers discontent over “not catching fish” isn’t necessarily limited to the striped bass.

Whatever the reason, both overall fishing effort and directed striped bass fishing effort fluctuated over the next six years, as did fishing for scup, summer flounder, and bluefish.  But in recent years, it was striped bass fishing effort that largely seemed to drive overall recreational fishing effort here in New York.

When overall effort dropped to about 12,066,937 trips in 2021, a decline of 1,344,806 trips, striped bass effort declined by 682,818 trips.  Anglers didn’t shift their effort to other species, but rather made 274,819 fewer trips targeting scup, summer flounder, and bluefish, and apparently another 300,000-plus fewer trips targeting other species.

Effort shift was nowhere to be seen.

When overall angling effort in 2023 showed a 937,614-trip increase between 2021 and 2023, much of that increase could be attributed to an 890,284-trip increase in directed striped bass effort.

And when the overall number of trips fell to a near-term low of 11,518,735 trios in 2025, a drop of 1.475,816 total trips compared to 2023, directed striped bass trips fell by 1,263,536, making up the lion’s share of the decline.  For the first time, an increase in summer flounder effort, which constituted about 25.3% of all New York trips, knocked striped bass, at 20.1%, out of first place, and almost looked like an effort shift to other species was taking place, but overall, the aggregate number of directed trips for scup, summer flounder and bluefish were almost flat, increasing by only about 80,000, from 4,980,329 to 4,993,381, a difference that can be explained as much by the uncertainty inherent in the estimates than to any real difference in the data.

So yes, it seems as if a decline in fish abundance, and striped bass abundance in particular, can and does have a very real impact on how many times people go fishing.

It turns out that conservative fisheries management, that emphasizes abundance and long-term sustainability, isn’t only good for fish stocks, and for increasing anglers’ enjoyment.  It’s good for the recreational fishing industry, too, as more fish lead to more fishing trips and to more anglers buying more bait and tackle to supply their increased fishing activity.

Maybe, with the decline of striped bass and the economic difficulties that will bring, the industry will finally figure that out, and join with anglers and fisheries managers in a quest for effective, conservative fisheries management.

Maybe.

But probably not.