Catchwise : The Biggest Sea Angling Site and Charter Boat Survey in Over a Decade
Catchwise is an exciting new survey of sea angling taking place across England and Wales in 2023 and 2024. The project has been co-developed with the recreational sea angling community and aims to significantly improve recognition of sea angling’s value to coastal communities and inform relevant fisheries management decisions accurately.
Catchwise will record data from sea anglers and charter boats across a 12-month period to understand who takes part in angling, how often they do it and what sorts of fishing they do, what they catch and how valuable sea angling is to local communities.
Catchwise will be the biggest single study of sea angling undertaken for over a decade and will involve a major shore and private boat survey of sea anglers as well as a survey of charter boats.
The project will be delivered by Substance, the Angling Trust and Cefas.
What is involved?
Catchwise will involve face-to-face surveying of thousands of sea anglers all around the English and Welsh coast and an online survey of charter boats.
The project will report in early 2025 and 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 and Skates and Rays.
Catchwise: Protecting Your Data. Catchwise will do a number of things to protect the data anglers give us and ensure that your personal marks, catches and other details are not divulged. Find out how here.
