Henry and Lyle, 2003:

"Participation in recreational fishing

• Australia had an estimated 3.36 million recreational fishers and a national recreational fishing participation rate of 19.5 per cent.
• An estimated 1.8 million Australian households contained at least one recreational fisher, representing 24.5 per cent of households nationally.
• NSW had the highest number of recreational fishers (999 000) followed by Queensland (785 000) and Victoria (550 000). But the highest participation rates were recorded from Northern Territory (31.6 per cent), Tasmania (29.3 per cent) and Western Australia (28.5 per cent).
• In general, fishing participation rates were inversely related to population size. As the state or regional human populations increased in size, the participation rate in fishing declined. This pattern was consistent within and between states.
• Fishing club membership among recreational fishers was low (4.3 per cent nationally) and the number of recreational fishing licence holders varied nationally according to state management arrangements.

Recreational fishing effort

• NSW recorded the greatest effort (6.9 million fisher days, 7.7 million events or 30.4 million fisher hours), followed by Queensland (4.6 million fisher days, 5.8 million events or 25.4 million fisher hours) and Western Australia (3.4 million fisher days, 3.4 million events or 19.7 million fisher hours).
• Recreational fishing effort was clearly concentrated on the east coast of Australia, with more than half the national total (measured either as days, events or hours) reported from New South Wales and Queensland.
• Individual fishing effort ranged from 1 to 169 days per annum and the average fishing effort was 6.13 days per fisher per year. The most active 15 per cent of fishers undertook about 50 per cent of the fishing events.
• Recreational fishing in coastal waters attracted 41 per cent of fishing effort. Fishing in estuarine waters (35 per cent), freshwater rivers (11 per cent), freshwater lakes and dams (8 per cent) and offshore waters (4 per cent) followed in importance.
• Recreational fishing in salt water (offshore, coastal and estuarine waters) accounted for 80 per cent of the national recreational fishing effort while freshwater fishing (freshwater rivers, lakes and dams) accounted for 20 per cent of the effort.
• Fishing from the shore attracted a greater level of activity (57 per cent of events) than fishing from boats (43 per cent of events). Of the boat-based fishing effort, more than 93 per cent of fishing events were conducted from private fishing boats as opposed to charter vessels (4 per cent) and hire boats (3 per cent).
• Line fishing methods (lines, lures, jigs, flys, setlines) accounted for 85 per cent of the national effort. Fishing with pots and traps (7 per cent), harvesting bait with pumps, rakes and spades (4 per cent), fishing with nets (3 per cent) and diving with spears or hand collecting (1 per cent) followed in importance.
• The average duration of a line (bait) fishing event was 3.6 hours, but the fishing times varied widely with the different fishing techniques. 

Effort by fishing method

• Eighteen different fishing methods were classified for the purposes of recording fishing activity and these have been grouped into five main categories for reporting purposes. The grouped categories are line fishing, fishing with pots or traps, fishing with nets, diving and their collection methods.
• Line fishing (including the use of bait, artificial lures and jigs as well as set-lines) accounted for 19.7 million fishing events, which is nearly 85 per cent of the overall annual fishing effort (Figure 16). Fishing using bait was more popular than fishing with artificial lures, either solely or in combination with bait fishing.
• Fishing with pots and traps (including crab and lobster pots, hoop nets and fish traps) was next in order of importance, representing 1.7 million events or 7 per cent of the total effort. Netting methods, including actively worked gear (cast nets, drag or seine and scoop or push nets) and set nets (gill nets), comprised 634 000 events, equivalent to 3 per cent of the total effort. Diving (using spears or underwater hand collection) contributed 266 000 events or just 1 per cent of the overall effort. SCUBA/surface air and snorkel diving (hand collection) was the primary activity (55 per cent of dive events) although spearfishing (36 per cent) was also significant. Spearing fish from the surface accounted for the balance of the ‘dive’ effort (9 per cent). Other methods (including hand collection, the use of pumps, rakes and spades) accounted for 915 000 events, about 4 per cent of the total fishing events nationally". 

Figure 1. Estimated annual harvest taken by Australian recreational fishers, aged five or older, for selected species by State or Territory.

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Citation and/or URL

Henry, G. & Lyle, J.E. 2003, The National Recreational and Indigenous Fishing Survey. FRDC Project 99/158, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Canberra, Australia

Spatial Coverage

Whole GBRMP (+ Australia-wide) 

Temporal Coverage

2000 - 2001 

Update Frequency

Other Information

See also the Northern Australia Indigenous fishing survey and other information on Recreational fishing effort proxy here  and here