This Is the Best State for Fishing

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Sep 22, 10:50AM EDT

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This Is the Best State for Fishing — © JANIFEST / iStock via Getty Images

About 15% of the U.S. population over the age of six goes fishing each year. Around 39 million Americans go freshwater fishing, which is about double the number of people who fish in saltwater or fly fish. The freshwater figure may be larger because only a handful of states are on either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts.

The range of the costs of fishing varies substantially. A simple fishing rod for freshwater activity can cost under $50. Deepsea fishing requires a huge boat, a crew and expensive rigging.

Lawn Love looked ranked all 50 states for fishing in a report titled “2021’s Best and Worst States for Fishing.” The report came out now because September 25 is National Hunting and Fishing Day.

The methodology for the study included fishing licenses per capita, the percentage of each state covered by water, marinas per 100,000 people, number of fishing trails, the number of fishing charters and guides, the cost of fishing licenses and the number of bait and tackle shops and fishing gear stores. Data was gathered from Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Field & Stream and Scheels.
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The study ranked states from 1 to 50. Alaska had the best score at 46.73. The state not only has pristine lakes and rivers, but it also has a long coastline on the Pacific Coast and the Bering Sea. Fishing is one of the three largest industries in Alaska, along with tourism and oil.

Michigan, second on the list, has about 11,000 inland lakes and is also on four of the largest lakes in the world: Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Superior.

Michigan is followed by Maine, which has both an abundance of inland lakes and a long Atlantic coastline.

These are the 10 best states for fishing:

Alaska (46.73)
Michigan (45.60)
Maine (45.03)
Rhode Island (44.51)
Florida (42.52)
Hawaii (39.66)
Wisconsin (38.78)
Massachusetts (38.75)
Louisiana (38.40)
Alabama (37.72)

Click here to read about the most popular recreation areas in America.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.