Abstract

Marine recreational fishing is a popular outdoor leisure activity nationwide when measured by number of participants. The National Marine Fisheries Service estimates that 24.7 million saltwater anglers fished 127.2 million days in the coastal states of the U.S. in 2006. In this report, we quantify the level of fishing expenditures for these anglers within each coastal state and the U.S. as a whole. At the U.S. level, we estimate that saltwater anglers spent an estimated $5.8 billion on trip-based expenditures (e.g., ice, bait, and fuel) and another $25.6 billion on fishing equipment and durable goods (e.g., fishing rods, fishing tackle, and boats) in 2006. In the second exercise carried out for this study we conduct a regional input-output assessment to examine how those expenditures circulated through each state’s economy as well as the economy of the entire U.S. We show that as angler expenditures filtered through the U.S. economy, they contributed an estimated $82.3 billion in total sales, $39.1 billion in value-added (i.e., contribution to  gross domestic product), $24.0 billion in income, and supported nearly 534 thousand jobs in the U.S. (Download the report here)