The Challenge

In late-2024 DJS Research were commissioned by The Environment Agency to conduct a nationally representative survey of adults in England about attitudes towards angling.

The Environment Agency has a statutory duty to maintain, improve, and develop migratory and freshwater fisheries, as set out in the Environment Act 1995. Fishing licence income is essential to fulfilling this duty. However, participation in angling has declined significantly since 2010, with the number of licensed anglers decreasing by a third. This decline poses challenges to the Agency’s ability to meet its obligations.

To address this, the Environment Agency wanted to better understand:

• Awareness of angling among non-anglers.
• Views and attitudes towards angling.
• Interest in taking up angling, including factors that might encourage participation.
• Barriers to participation in angling.

This understanding was needed to support efforts to recruit new anglers and reconnect with lapsed anglers.

The Approach

It was important that the research was based on a large and representative sample of adults from across England, to enable detailed analysis and demographic breakdown of lapsed and potential anglers. The survey was specifically focused on freshwater fishing/angling, rather than sea fishing and we conducted preliminary research, using our in-house panel Opinion Exchange, to help identify likely incidence rates of current and lapsed anglers to help design the sampling approach.

For the main survey DJS Research used a multi-mode approach to achieve a nationally representative sample of just over 2,000 adults. The majority of surveys were completed online; with the remainder (around 400 by telephone) to ensure the research captured the views of those less digitally engaged. Quotas were set by region, age, gender, ethnicity and disability status, with small corrective weights applied to the final data to ensure the insight generated was fully representative.

The questionnaire was designed to first establish whether adults are current or lapsed anglers or whether they had never been angling. Respondents were then filtered through a series of questions regarding their attitudes, current/potential behaviours and motivations towards freshwater angling, based on their angling status.

The Results

Findings from the research were presented in a full summary report and discussed in follow up sessions with the client. The analysis included advanced statistical techniques including Chi-square automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analysis to help identify the key demographic splits among those likely to go fishing in the next 12 months. The analysis identified certain combinations of demographic and geographic factors, including age, sex, whether they have children and UK region, where likelihood to go freshwater fishing in the next 12 months is six-times higher than amongst other sub-groups of the population.

Regression/ Key Driver analysis was also undertaken to identify the items in the survey (including knowledge and attitudes towards freshwater fishing and participation in other activities) that have the greatest influence on likelihood to go freshwater fishing in the next 12 months and therefore the biggest predictors of participation in the sport.

Testimonial

‘We recently worked with DJS research on some insight into new angling audiences. They provided an assured and efficient approach and delivered on time and on budget. Their professionalism and quality of work they produced throughout the project was exemplary and to a very high standard’.

Tom Sherwood, Senior Advisor, Partnerships team, Nature Recover, Environment and Business. The Environment Agency