catchwise

Catchwise

 

About the Project

What is Catchwise?
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Catchwise is a research project to learn more about recreational sea angling in England and Wales. Catchwise collected important insights into recreational sea fishing via face-to-face surveying of thousands of sea anglers all around the English and Welsh coast and an online survey of hundreds of charter boats. Data was recorded from sea anglers and charter boats to understand who takes part in angling, how often they do it, what sorts of fishing they do and what they catch.

The data collection stage ran from July 2023 to July 2024 for shore anglers, and October 2023 to October 2024 for charter boats. Research findings will be reported in 2025.

Why is Catchwise important?

The project will help inform the funding of sea angling, demonstrate its importance to coastal communities and highlight recreational use of UK fish stocks. Recreational anglers catch around 100 species each year, many of which are non-quota and non-commercial stocks, and this project will provide new and improved data on data-poor stocks that are important recreationally. These include Gurnards, Black Seabream, John Dory, Pilchards, Lemon Sole, Cod, Whiting, Hake, Saithe, Ling, Blue Ling, Skates and Rays.

What did Catchwise find?

The Catchwise report is coming soon.

 

Project Support

Catchwise is an innovative collaboration between Substance, Cefas, and the Angling Trust. The project is funded by Defra’s Fisheries Industry Science Partnerships Scheme (FISP) that is working together with the recreational sea angling community in England and Wales.

The project is supported by many angling and marine organisations. It has an Advisory Group representing the recreational sea angling community, individual anglers, charter skippers, scientists, fisheries managers and agencies. It includes:

  • Angling Trades Association
  • Association of IFCAs
  • Angling Cymru Sea Anglers
  • Institute of Fisheries Management
  • Welsh Government
  • Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
  • Marine Management Organisation
  • Simon Thomas (York University)
  • Annica de Groote (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)
  • Harry Strehlow and Simon Weltersbach (The Thünen Institute, Denmark)
  • Charter Boat representative
 

What is the relationship between Catchwise and the Sea Angling Diary Project?

The Sea Angling Diary is a research project run in partnership by government marine science organisation, Cefas, and research company, Substance. It is undertaken on behalf of the English and Welsh governments who fund the work.

The Sea Angling Diary Project has been running since 2016 and is one of the longest running research projects on sea angling in the UK. The project involves sea anglers reporting their sea angling information via a mobile app and online tool. The details collected are:

  • sea angling activity (whether the angler fished in a month or not);
  • sea angling sessions (location, duration, method and platform);
  • catches;
  • spending and social impacts in yearly independent surveys.

These data are used, alongside other surveys, to provide an estimate of the participation levels (numbers, frequency), catches by species and area, economic value of sea angling and its social impacts.

Catchwise was set up to understand the bias in the Sea Angling Diary Project and determine the confidence in the data that is produced by the Sea Angling Diary. The outputs for the two projects will be compared in a robust analysis and modelling exercise conducted by Cefas. The results of Catchwise will inform how the Sea Angling Diary project data is used in the future.

To find out more about the Sea Angling Diary and get involved, click here.