August 18, 2021 — Recreational fishing in the U.S. is largely a personal hobby that scales up to a multibillion-dollar economic activity. More than 44 million people in the U.S. identify as recreational anglers making this hobby second only to jogging in terms of popular outdoor activities.
At the beginning of the pandemic last spring as things were shutting down, fisheries science researchers at LSU, U.S. Geological Survey and Clemson University saw the opportunity to study how the pandemic was affecting recreational anglers. LSU launched an online survey from July to August 2020 and received nearly 18,000 responses across 10 states. The researchers asked recreational anglers 20 questions that included if they fished more or less since the pandemic, what their motivations were and if they thought fishing is safe in terms of COVID-19 exposure.
“What we found is people still fished and in fact, they fished a little bit more during the pandemic,” said LSU Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences Assistant Professor Stephen Midway, who is the lead author of this study that is published in PLOS ONE.
Out of five anglers, four fished as much during the pandemic as they did before while, one angler out of the five fished more—taking about one additional trip in the spring. Although the increase may seem small, it has a positive ripple effect for the economy and fisheries management.