Florida Ranked Most Popular Fishing Destination in U.S.
In the search to find the most popular fishing destination in the United States, Captain Experiences, a fishing and hunting guide reservation platform, just released a new report looking at the top U.S. states for fishing tourism. It was no contest as Florida is clearly the choice for out of state anglers.
To determine the most popular fishing travel destinations in the U.S., researchers calculated the number of fishing licenses, tags, permits, and stamps held by out-of-state residents in each state, then ranked them accordingly. The latest licensing data is for apportionment year 2024, which reflects license sales that occurred in 2022.
Here’s What Makes Florida The Most Popular Fishing Destination
- During the study period, Florida generated $25,753,980 in annual fishing license revenue from non-residents.
- This accounted for 54.4% of the state’s fishing license revenue that year.
- In total, Florida issued 917,665 annual fishing licenses to non-residents in 2022, the most of any U.S. state.
Here’s how some other states stack up.
| State | Rank | Annual fishing licenses issued to non-residents | Annual fishing license revenue from non-residents | Share of annual fishing licenses issued to non-residents | Share of annual fishing license revenue from non-residents |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida | 1 | 917,665 | $25,753,980 | 36.8% | 54.4% |
| Montana | 2 | 739,575 | $16,647,712 | 50.0% | 72.5% |
| Colorado | 3 | 511,912 | $12,335,290 | 38.9% | 41.2% |
| Alaska | 4 | 492,860 | $15,817,365 | 70.8% | 75.6% |
| Wisconsin | 5 | 448,237 | $12,146,592 | 25.3% | 35.1% |
| Tennessee | 6 | 388,475 | $13,353,929 | 23.5% | 30.6% |
| Minnesota | 7 | 377,439 | $13,376,465 | 23.6% | 34.8% |
| North Carolina | 8 | 275,808 | $6,324,127 | 29.3% | 22.1% |
| Michigan | 9 | 252,180 | $9,275,692 | 21.2% | 31.1% |
| Idaho | 10 | 247,744 | $10,241,245 | 28.0% | 55.8% |
| Wyoming | 11 | 231,511 | $6,617,055 | 71.5% | 77.1% |
| South Carolina | 12 | 230,871 | $2,321,338 | 28.6% | 36.5% |
| New Mexico | 13 | 229,300 | $2,786,201 | 29.9% | 33.4% |
| Georgia | 14 | 221,189 | $3,318,536 | 13.8% | 21.1% |
| Oregon | 15 | 217,658 | $8,614,226 | 22.1% | 25.7% |
| United States | – | 9,361,275 | $263,382,669 | 22.3% | 29.3% |
More than half of Florida’s fishing license revenue comes from out of state visitors. Considering the 1,350 miles of coastline and over 30,000 lakes there’s plenty of room for fishing tourism, easily making us the most popular fishing destination in America.. Oh you forgot about all of our lakes? Florida isn’t just about the sport fishing in the Atlantic and the Gulf, we’ve got some great bass fishing, too. And the Square Grouper have been plentiful in the Keys this summer.
Florida Has 3 Of The Top 10 Bass Fishing Lakes In The Country
