Socio-economic portrait of Polish anglers: implications for recreational fisheries management in freshwater bodies

Recreational fisheries are an important element of contemporary fisheries. Detailed information about the motivation and opinions of anglers regarding catch-and-release fishing in post-communist countries, such as Poland, has not been widely available to date. The aim of this study was to fill this gap. We obtained 936 survey questionnaires completed by anglers from throughout Poland. The mean annual catch of a Polish angler is 126 fish weighing 46.1 kg. Anglers catch mainly cyprinids, but they would prefer to catch large predatory fishes, and they spend an average of 416.50 EUR on this activity annually. These results confirm the hypothesis that angling catches in Poland are decidedly of a recreational character and that catches targeted at fish consumption are of lesser importance. Simultaneously, we determined that younger anglers are more willing to release caught fish than older anglers.