Fewer Americans went fishing in 2025 than in 2024, the first annual decline the sport has recorded since 2021.
The American Sportfishing Association released the 2026 Special Report on Fishing on 29 July. It found that 57 million Americans aged six and over fished at some point during 2025, roughly 18 percent of the population. That is down from the record 57.9 million logged in 2024, and still up almost 25 percent on where the sport stood a decade ago.
The size of the drop is modest. The number sitting underneath it is not. ASA reported that 19 million people who fished in 2024 did not fish in 2025 - the highest rate of angler churn the report has measured.
"In 2025, fishing continued to bring Americans together, connecting people to the outdoors, sustaining families and strengthening the communities and economies that depend on it," said ASA President and CEO Glenn Hughes. "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."
Several measures moved the other way. Total fishing outings rose 3 percent to 918 million, meaning the anglers who stayed fished harder. Saltwater participation hit a record 15.5 million, its fourth consecutive high. Three million Americans tried fishing for the first time, 11 percent of all participants, up from 9 percent. Nearly 6 million Black Americans fished, the highest figure since tracking began in 2007, and Hispanic participation reached an all-time high of 6.9 million, double the 3.4 million recorded in 2015.
ASA linked part of the decline to something that happened off the water. In early 2025, federal funding for the National Outreach and Communications Program - the Dingell-Johnson-authorised pot that pays for introductory fishing programmes and recruitment campaigns - was abruptly paused.
Writing for Bassmaster in February, Joe Sills traced what followed. The Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, which had implemented the programme for 27 years and runs the Take Me Fishing campaign, had its funds frozen on 1 April 2025 and cut its team of 16 in half. On 10 June it was told its work "no longer effectuates the priorities of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service", and its grant funding for 2025, 2026 and 2027 was cancelled. The Department of the Interior then opened roughly $26 million to more than 200 applicants.
JD Strong, RBFF's former senior director of industry engagement, came out of retirement to join the organisation and walked out of its Alexandria office in August with two roller bags.
"There was a time when all of this money was going out the door to multiple entities and we were getting a downward spiral in participation," Strong told Bassmaster. "Are we headed back in that direction now?"
Hughes was blunter about the loss. "I thought there was no better way of using funds than through RBFF," he said. "For 27 years, no other group has had the infrastructure, the wherewithal, the intelligence and the relationships to pull a national program off."
RBFF reported that fishing licence sales among states feeding a national dashboard fell 8 percent between 1 April and mid-July 2025, a decline it put at more than $590 million in lost angler spending and 5,600 jobs.
Not everyone reads the trend as a marketing failure. Russ Mason, a former wildlife chief at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, argued to Interlochen Public Radio in February 2025 that the direction of travel is structural.
"If you look across North America, 15% of people fish, about 4.5% of people hunt," Mason said. "And those numbers are expected to decline, so there will be fewer anglers in the future, fewer hunters in the future, and there's really not much that can be done about that."
His prescription is to stop leaning on the same payers. Rather than "applying what amounts to a tired and threadbare approach to funding fish and wildlife conservation", he said, states should look at broader sources - the model Missouri and Minnesota use, where a slice of sales tax funds conservation for everyone who uses the outdoors.
The retention numbers give both arguments something to work with. Eighty-six percent of current participants fished before the age of 12. Ten percent of Americans who did not fish, and 15 percent of children, said they had thought about it. And 99 percent of those who fished in 2025 expect to fish again in 2026 - which is either a reason for optimism or a reminder of how much of the churn is people who meant to go and never did.
"Bringing new folks into our community and slowing the churn rate are top priorities for ASA and the entire sportfishing industry," Hughes said. "Decreased participation doesn't just result in lower tackle sales, it also leads to reduced public access, fewer fish stocked in lakes and rivers, less habitat improvement projects and so much more."
