Recreational and charter fishing activities generate a range of social and economic benefits. In 2017–18, fishers spent an estimated $2,219 million on recreational ($2,195 million) and charter ($24 million) activities.
NSW DPI’s Integrated Monitoring Program (IMP) is collecting high quality information on recreational fisheries, and includes a Charter Fishery monitoring module. The charter module has had more than 40 operators host scientific observers who collected data on fisher demographics, fleet fishing effort, locations fished, interactions with threatened species and fish measurements for the biological sampling program. In 6 months the program has collected information from more than 130 charter fishing trips from 14 ports along the NSW coast.
NSW DPI has awarded $644,000 in grants to recreational angling clubs, community groups, landholders and local councils for 29 unique fish habitat projects, under the popular Habitat Action Grants Program. The projects cover coastal and inland fishing spots and will improvement local creeks, riverbanks and wetlands, which will improve fish habitats and ultimately produce more fish. There will be flow-on benefits to local communities and tourism through improved recreational fishing opportunities.
NSW DPI undertook the inaugural stocking of Estuary Perch into Brogo Dam with the release of 10,000 fingerlings. Anglers on the far south coast are set to benefit from enhanced recreational fishing amenity and opportunity. A Recreational Fishing Trust project initiative, the fish were bred at Narooma Aquaculture and released with the assistance of local fishers. During 2016-17, more than 5 million native fish and trout were stocked in freshwater areas across NSW.
An estimated $2.195 billion was spent on recreational fishing trips in 2017-18, resulting in combined direct and indirect economic output in excess $3.42 billion 95, z .
Catch, effort and participation rates are evaluated by surveys and are used to inform fisheries management practices. Around 850,000 people fished recreationally in 2013–14, down from around one million in 2000–01. The average number of days fished per fisher was also down to 4.3 from 5.6 108 .
The top five species caught by recreational fishers included four fish (bream, dusky and sand flathead and snapper) and one crustacean (saltwater nippers) 108 .