Recreational Fishing

Canada

2000 Survey of Recreational Fishing in Canada
Survey Highlights

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Harvest

In 2000, anglers caught almost 233 million fish of all species and retained about 85 million (Tables 5 and 6). Resident anglers caught 73% of the fish and they kept over 84% or, on average, 26 fish each over the year. Nonresident Canadians kept an average of 7 fish each, while visiting foreign anglers retained an average of 16 fish of all species. About 46% of all fish reported were caught in the province of Ontario, however, the overall proportion of fish retained by anglers in Ontario was only 31%, compared to 42% for anglers in Quebec.

In terms of species (Figure 2), trout accounted for 21.6% of all fish caught, followed by walleye (20.6%) and perch (14.8%). For both nonresident angler groups, walleye was the species caught most often accounting for 25.6% of the foreign angler catch and 34.4% of the nonresident Canadian catch (Table 5). Walleye also accounted for the highest proportion of species retained by these anglers (27% and 32 % respectively).

Overall, anglers retained 36.4% of the fish they caught. Resident anglers kept 42.3%; nonresident anglers, 21.8%; and, foreign anglers, 20.9% (Table 6).

In general, anglers kept higher proportions of salt-water fish such as cod (95%), mackerel (88%) and smelt (86%) compared to freshwater species such as trout (54%), perch (43%) and salmon (36%). The species least favoured for retention were northern pike (16%), bass (14.6%) and grayling (11.2%).