Corporate report

Fisheries annual report 2023 to 2024: how we spend fishing licence income

Published 21 November 2024

Applies to England

• Publication for Northern Ireland
• Publication for Scotland
• Publication for Wales

This report covers 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. We publish in the following year so we can report on a whole year’s data.

1. What we have done with our resources

During the financial year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 we sold 910,973 fishing licences in England. This generated an income of £22.53 million. We also received £1.45 million grant-in-aid from central government.

With this money we were able to:

• check 46,126 fishing licences
• make 421 successful prosecutions
• respond to 419 fisheries incidents involving dead or dying fish
• do 1,933 fish stock surveys
• supply and stock 478,937 coarse fish
• work with over 500 different project partners
• complete 17 fish pass solutions and removed 16 weirs and barriers
• improve habitats for fish on 406 kilometres (km) of rivers and protect habitats for fish on 219km of rivers
• enhance 392 hectares (ha) of stillwater fisheries and improve 58 ha of stillwater habitat

2. The activities we have spent the money on

Category	Percentage
Areas	27.7%
Fisheries project portfolio	31.3%
Support services	19.2%
National services	15.6%
Government support and strategic services	6.2%

Area

We provided 27.7% of income to deliver work in all of our 14 areas. This includes:

• monitoring
• enforcement
• fish stocking
• fish rescues
• responding to incidents
• providing fisheries advice

Fisheries project portfolio

We have contributed 31.3% of our income towards the fisheries project portfolio. This includes funding the partnership work we do with other organisations. Examples of these are:

• the Angling Trust
• the Wild Trout Trust
• local rivers trusts

It also includes funding angling and fisheries improvement projects.

Support services

We have invested 19.2% of our income on support services. These include the costs of:

• IT infrastructure
• finance
• corporate services
• human resources

National services

We have spent 15.6% on national services. This expenditure covers the costs of:

• licence sales
• administration
• prosecutions
• National Fisheries Laboratory
• contributions to our National Customer Contact Centre, Estates and Fleet Operations

Government support and strategic services

We have used 6.2% to support government and input to the strategic direction for achieving our fisheries priority outcomes. This includes the costs of our national fisheries team.

3. Fishing licence sales and income

Total sales from 2001-02 to 2023-24

Year	Total sales
2000-01	1,024,091
2001-02	1,081,623
2002-03	1,126,880
2003-04	1,197,160
2004-05	1,202,457
2005-06	1,198,768
2006-07	1,210,869
2007-08	1,265,771
2008-09	1,286,419
2009-10	1,391,201
2010-11	1,368,141
2011-12	1,370,465
2012-13	1,230,936
2013-14	1,243,837
2014-15	1,210,306
2015-16	1,210,201
2016-17	1,191,141
2017-18	1,060,420
2018-19	955,310
2019-20	940,974
2020-21	1,090,068
2021-22	934,760
2022-23	903,216
2023-24	910,973

Total income from 2001-02 to 2023-24

Year	Total income (£)
2000-01	13,496,317
2001-02	14,010,810
2002-03	15,169,556
2003-04	16,962,549
2004-05	18,291,311
2005-06	18,522,942
2006-07	19,231,519
2007-08	20,119,482
2008-09	21,490,764
2009-10	23,896,662
2010-11	24,116,924
2011-12	23,874,632
2012-13	21,840,128
2013-14	21,583,539
2014-15	21,146,844
2015-16	21,083,273
2016-17	20,661,859
2017-18	23,132,885
2018-19	21,347,795
2019-20	20,898,332
2020-21	24,583,342
2021-22	21,854,093
2022-23	20,900,133
2023-24	22,531,671

Since 2010 the number of people that went fishing and bought licences has declined by roughly one third. As income and sales declined, we have had less money to spend on our fisheries work. However, we have managed to restrict the effects of this through efficiency savings and better partnership working.

In 2023 to 2024 the fishing licence duty increased – this was only the second time in this period (the other being 2017 to 2018). The government has approved further increases in 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026. This is necessary so we can uphold our statutory duties to maintain, develop and improve freshwater fisheries.

During 2023 to 2024 fishing licence sales increased on the previous year. This is only the second time since 2010 that this has happened. Efforts continue to reverse the decline in participation rates through the reinvestment of fishing licence income as documented in this report. Fishing licence income is also invested into marketing to try to:

• recruit new and lapsed anglers
• retain the current customer base

In 2023 to 2024 we spent £300,000 on marketing activities which contributed to a total of £4,300,000 in income and 288,611 licence sales.

4. How partnerships help us achieve our objectives

By working in partnership with other like-minded groups and organisations, we can often achieve:

• more with our money
• better fisheries outcomes

We worked with over 500 partners in 2023 to 2024. These include the:

• Angling Trust
• Wild Trout Trust
• Institute of Fisheries Management
• Riverfly Partnership
• local river trusts, angling clubs, charities and others

The work we do with partners includes:

• working on projects to improve fish stocks and habitats
• providing new facilities for anglers and making fisheries more accessible
• taking action to mitigate the impacts of climate change
• promoting angling and giving more people the opportunity to try fishing
• joined up enforcement and intelligence sharing

The Angling Trust

We commission the Angling Trust to do certain activities that improve and develop angling under our National Angling Strategic Services (NASS) contract. The service is worth about £1.35 million per year. The current contract was awarded in 2019 following competitive tender. In 2022 we extended the contract for 12 months to run until 31 March 2024.

During 2023 to 2024 we advertised for the next NASS contract, following a competitive procurement process we awarded the work to the Angling Trust. It commenced on 1 April 2024 and will run for 4 years until 31 March 2028. 

One of the main objectives of the contract is to increase the number of people fishing and buying a licence. We want more people to fish more often and the contract focuses on recruiting new anglers or to encourage lapsed anglers back into the sport. 

In 2023 to 2024 the Angling Trust was supported by many partners, most notably the Canal and River Trust and Get Hooked on Fishing, to run angling participation events. These events resulted in 43,224 people trying fishing for the first time. Quality rather than quantity is the objective for ‘Get Fishing’ participation events. This gives attendees greater learning time and an enjoyable fishing experience.

The Get Fishing award scheme (launched in 2020) continued to prove popular with new anglers attending for 3 events and progressing through bronze, silver and gold levels. There were 3,646 participants who completed the full course and obtained a fishing licence and are hopefully on the path to becoming a lifelong angler.

The ‘Take a Friend Fishing’ and ‘National Fishing Month’ initiatives, in association with the Angling Trust and the Angling Trades Association, continued in 2023 to 2024.

The Angling Trust also trained people who help introduce newcomers to angling. Using Environment Agency bursaries, we saw 122 new Level 1 and 209 Level 2 licenced coaches. It was notable to report that these included 33 new female coaches and 21 people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

In 2023 to 2024 the Get Fishing Fund issued 113 grants worth £200,000 in total.

There are now 42 accredited ‘Get Fishing for Wellbeing’ partners.

As part of the contract the Angling Trust engaged with anglers through a mixture of virtual and face to face forums.

There were 13 virtual meetings held covering a broad range of topics, including H&S requirements for projects and work parties, the Reel Education initiative and the latest information about Prussian carp. The total number of attendees was 646. All forums were available on catch up and by the end of the year there were 716 additional viewings.

Six local forum meetings were organised, attended by 138 people representing 65 angling clubs and fisheries. The Angling Trust X and Twitter Fisheries Forum account issued 396 posts and had 1,753 followers by the end of the year

The Fishing Buzz website was created to keep anglers engaged with their ‘fishing habit’ during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has since evolved into a platform providing quality angling content to all types of anglers. In 2023 to 2024 there were:

• over 300 items of content published
• 53,521 user session views (underestimate due to analytic monitoring not being available for part of the year)
• The Fishing Buzz Instagram channel was launched in 2023 to 2024 and by the end of the year it had provided 181 posts and attracted 33,116 followers

The social media channels operated by the Angling Trust but containing Environment Agency content continued to be popular through 2023 to 2024. A total of 116 Environment Agency related items were posted on the main Angling Trust Facebook page, providing a:

• total reach of 3,206,882 (impressions)
• total engagement of 168,598

The 8 regional Angling Trust Facebook pages that predominantly feature Environment Agency information attracted 13,418 followers by the year end, providing a:

• total reach of 764,655 (impressions)
• total engagement of 37,374

The Angling Trust main X and Twitter page featured 116 Environment Agency related posts providing a:

• total reach of 111,696 (impressions)
• total engagement of 1,825

There were 16 articles posted on the Lines on the Water blog, which were read over 70,423 times.

As part of the contract the Angling Trust offer predation control advice; Fisheries Management Advisors responded to 986 requests for help relating to otter or fish-eating bird problems during 2023 to 2024. This included attending meetings, site visits and telephone or email contact.

The work includes the provision of invasive non-native species and biosecurity advice. The environment officers employed also provided a focus for the ‘Anglers Against Litter’ campaign, and continued to support the Anglers National Line Recycling Scheme by providing recycling bins for fisheries and at tackle shops for the disposal of unwanted fishing line.

The officers responded to over 550 requests for help from fisheries, with issues ranging from giant hogweed to signal crayfish. A particular focus in the Thames area was to co-ordinate action against rivers affected by floating pennywort. They also organised over 20 litter picks and gave out over 50 litter picking kits (provided by Shimano).

Wild Trout Trust

We continue to enjoy a productive partnership with the Wild Trout Trust. Our joint aim is to involve people and communities in conservation. This includes enhancing the natural environment, especially our rivers, their trout and other wildlife.

We contributed £90,000 to fund advisory work and £25,000 for project costs.

In 2023 to 2024 they completed:

• 97 advisory visits and reports of recommendations for habitat improvement work
• 19 practical river improvement workshops
• 11 fisheries improvement projects
• activities that directly enhanced 285km of rivers across England

The Wild Trout Trust generated £869k co-funding (cash and in-kind). This represents a 1:7.5 gearing for our investment (for every £1 we gave, they brought in another £7.50 through match funding).

The Riverfly Partnership

The Anglers’ Riverfly Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) is a citizen science initiative. Volunteers are trained to do standardised monitoring of aquatic invertebrates in rivers. They do this monthly and use it to assess water quality.

The ARMI is hosted by the Freshwater Biological Association.

We provided the Riverfly Partnership £59,000 funding.

In 2023 to 2024 Riverfly volunteers:

• uploaded 4,698 survey records to ARMI database
• represented 1,220 active samplers
• monitored 1,075 sites across 457 rivers and 148 catchments
• passed on 68 trigger level alerts (indicating a possible pollution impact)
• generated £512,700 in match funding

Riverfly has expanded during 2023 to 2024 following a successful award from the Esme Fairburn Foundation led to the recruitment of 2 new posts to support activities across the whole of the UK. Transition to a new database has seen an increase in usage (20,000 visits per month), engagement is up (there are now over 1,000 recipients of the newsletter) and social media followers across Facebook, X and Twitter and Instagram have all seen significant growth.

5. Improvement projects

There are 2 types of projects funded directly by fishing licence income. They are:

• Angling Improvement Fund projects managed by the Angling Trust through the National Angling Strategic Services contract
• Fisheries Improvements Programme projects managed by local Environment Agency teams

Other Environment Agency projects provide benefits to fisheries. Most notably the Water Environment Improvement Fund that achieves Water Framework Directive outcomes, funded as grant in aid from central government.

In projects to improve fisheries, in total we spent:

• £1.18 million of fishing licence income
• £8.35 million from other Environment Agency sources
• £22.2 million of other funding

Angling Improvement Fund

There were 51 projects funded during the year. The 2 were themes:

• protection of fisheries from predation by otters and cormorants (33 projects)
• invasive non-native species control and biosecurity measures (18 projects)

The funding for Angling Improvement Fund projects came from:

• licence income – £220,388
• match funding including cash from partners, match funding grants or the ‘in kind’ time of volunteers – £514,269

See the the publication summary page for a map showing the locations of projects.

Fisheries Improvement Programme projects

232 projects were completed during the year. Working with around 225 partners, we:

• improved 6.2km of river and enhanced 8km of river fisheries
• improved 58ha of stillwater habitat
• 160 angling facilities enhanced 392ha stillwater fisheries – this involved the repair or construction of angler access facilities, such as platforms and easy access pathways at venues
• 101,690 anglers benefited from this work

The funding of Fisheries Improvement Programme projects came from:

• fishing licence income – £955,543
• match funding – £1,035,028

See the the publication summary page for a map showing the locations of projects.

Water Environment Improvement Fund

Projects are usually organised through catchment partnerships. Habitat improvements can benefit fish and fisheries.

Working with 658 partners, we:

• enhanced 406 km of rivers
• protected 219 km of rivers
• built 17 fish and eel pass improvements
• removed 16 weirs and barriers

The funding for Water Environment Improvement Fund projects was:

• £8,353,220 from Environment Agency funding (not fishing licence income)
• £20,673,516 from match funding

6. Coarse fish stocking

We run a coarse fish hatchery at Calverton near Nottingham. This is funded by fishing licence income. This rears fish to help:

• replenish stocks after an environmental incident
• kick-start the recovery of fisheries after they have recovered from long term issues, for example pollution

In 2023 to 2024 the National Coarse Fish Rearing Unit at Calverton stocked 478,937 fish into rivers and stillwaters around the country. This was made up of the following species:

• barbel – 135,410
• bream – 51,494
• chub – 47,450
• dace – 66,600
• roach – 88,724
• crucians – 16,800
• tench – 15,350
• rudd – 17,809
• grayling – 39,300

Over 350,000 of the total fish stocked went into flowing water, and were a mixture of one and two year old fish. In addition to that figure, they also stocked in excess of 2 million advanced reared fish larvae out into the wild.

7. National Fisheries Laboratory

We operate a National Fisheries Laboratory, based in Brampton, Cambridgeshire, which is largely funded through fishing licence income.

The laboratory does vital work to identify, monitor and limit the impact of current and future threats to fisheries and the aquatic environment. These threats are from both fish disease and non-native fish species.

The laboratory’s work:

• is pivotal to the ongoing monitoring and surveillance of the health status of fish populations
• informs fishery management actions, advice, and regulation

The laboratory’s work involves:

• detailed mortality investigations
• health checks
• fish ageing analysis
• monitoring and surveillance
• provision of technical advice, training and support to our staff and stakeholders

In 2023 to 2024 the National Fisheries Laboratory:

• assessed 112 fish mortality events related to potential fish disease incidents
• did 41 health checks to enable safe stocking of over half a million fish
• did full fish disease diagnostic investigations into fish kills at 36 fisheries
• did 17 laboratory investigations to support national projects for high priority species or risks to fisheries, for example critical eel passage and protection, and emerging disease surveillance
• provided response and expert support for the identification, monitoring, management, risk assessment and regulation of 3 priority non-native fish species, new and emerging pathogens, and a range of existing pathogens
• analysed 7,666 sets of fish scales to determine the age structure and performance of fish populations, including over 600 scales obtained from stillwaters to inform better fishery management
• did 44 additional age surveys to inform fish disease incidents
• provided advice, training, guidance and support to internal staff and external stakeholders
• developed new and improved diagnostic techniques to detect existing and novel fish and pathogens
• responded to over 1,500 queries in support of national incidents, fishery management advice and guidance

8. National Fish Movements team

The National Fish Movements team is based in Brampton, Cambridgeshire, and is mainly funded through fishing rod licence income.

The team is a national customer-facing team responsible for the administration, processing and issue of fish movement permissions. The service is integral to the regulation of fisheries. It works to protect native fish stocks and the wider aquatic environment from adverse impacts associated with inappropriate fish introductions or removals of fish into or from the wild (excluding fish farms).

The team’s services for internal and external customers include:

• issuing fish movement permissions for the introduction and keeping of fish
• fish removal authorisations (including crayfish)
• authorisations and licences for commercial fisheries (salmon, sea trout, eel, elver, smelt and lamprey)
• supporting fisheries enforcement
• providing technical advice

The team collects fisheries exploitation data (catch returns) and publishes the annual salmonid and freshwater fisheries statistics for England and Wales.

In 2023 to 2024 the team:

• maintained 6,941 issued permits to introduce and or keep fish
• issued 689 new permits to introduce or keep fish
• issued 1,727 Section 27A authorisations to remove fish and crayfish
• issued 70 commercial salmon and sea trout licences
• issued 170 commercial elver authorisations
• issued 34 commercial eel authorisations
• collated and reported on 12,965 salmon and sea trout rod catch returns

9. Enforcement

We make sure anglers comply with regulations to protect fish stocks, such as during the close season.

In 2023 to 2024 we:

• checked 46,126 fishing licences
• issued 2,286 offence reports
• successfully prosecuted 421 anglers for fishing without a licence
• issued 373 warning letters

It can take up to 6 months to bring a case to prosecution. The number of prosecutions does not necessarily reflect the number of people issued offence reports during this financial year.

The evasion rate for those who were caught fishing without a valid fishing licence was 4.8%. In total £76,485.00 was issued in penalties against anglers over the year. The average penalty received was £181.67.

An integral part of our enforcement activity is the Fisheries Enforcement Support Service provided by the Angling Trust. This includes the Voluntary Bailiff Service which operates across all of England with a total of 659 volunteers, as of 31 March 2023.

Voluntary bailiffs:

• did 17,427 patrols
• gave 44,783 volunteer hours on the bank
• did 186 joint patrols with the Environment Agency
• did 102 joint patrols with the police
• submitted 1,021 incident reports to the Environment Agency, police and other agencies
• submitted 432 intelligence logs to the Environment Agency and police

Forty one police forces have joined Operation Leviathan and Traverse initiatives as part of the Fisheries Enforcement Support Service.

10. Incident response 

We attended 419 incidents involving dead or dying fish. These incidents included:

Cause	Number of incidents	Number of fish killed	Percentage of incidents	Percentage of fish killed
Pollution	32	105,789	7.64%	35.52%
Fish disease	29	3,111	6.92%	1.04%
Warm or dry weather or algae	196	43,704	46.78%	14.67%
Habitat damage	1	3,100	0.24%	1.04%
Illegal fishing	13	61	3.10%	0.02%
Fishery management	14	845	3.34%	0.28%
Other causes	54	123,768	12.89%	41.55%
Not identified	80	17,472	19.09%	5.87%
Total	419	297,850	100%	100%

These data comprise incidents where we have:

• confirmed that fish have been killed
• observed and recorded a number of dead fish

It can be difficult to accurately estimate how many fish have died in individual incidents or even that any fish have died, as some carcasses:

• may not be visible (sunk or washed away)
• have been scavenged
• were not accessible to count

We can only provide a best estimate based on the assessment method used. Because of this, you should take the number of fish kill incidents and the total number of fish killed as minimum estimates.

It can also be difficult to ascribe a fish kill to a specific cause. For example, while poor water quality or pollution may be the underlying reason for a fish kill, it may have been triggered by prolonged dry and warm weather. Similarly, we may not have sufficient evidence that a fish kill was due to a particular cause, so it may have to be listed as ‘not identified’.

11. Monitoring

Monitoring of fish populations helps us to:

• inform our management decisions
• report on the state of the water environment

We do surveys either every year, 2 years, 3 years or 6 years. The frequency depends on why we are collecting information at the site. Not every water body is monitored for fish. We prioritise those:

• with angling interest
• considered at most risk

During 2023 to 2024 we did 1,933 fish stock surveys. This is up from the 1,200 surveys done in 2022 to 2023 and the highest number achieved since before COVID-19.

Waterbody status for fish as indicated by these surveys and other data showed:

• 43% – good or better
• 27% – moderate
• 24% – poor
• 6% – bad

We also use our fisheries monitoring to assess the status of migratory fish stocks in our main salmon and sea trout rivers. We use a range of fish counters and rod catch data to make these assessments.

In 2023, for England’s 42 principal salmon rivers, we classified:

• 1 ‘not at risk’
• 3 ‘probably not at risk’
• 6 ‘probably at risk’
• 32 ‘at risk’

Salmon populations in England remain in a critical state.

For England’s 44 principal sea trout rivers, we classified:

• 6 ‘not at risk’
• 10 ‘probably not at risk’
• 18 ‘probably at risk’
• 10 ‘at risk’

See the publication summary page for a map showing the status of salmon and sea trout rivers.

The declared salmon rod catch for England was 4,340 salmon, which was -21% lower than 2022 (5,498).

The declared sea trout rod catch in England was 7,667, which was 17% higher than 2022 (6,537).

If you would like to find out more:

• we provide a detailed report on the status of salmon stocks across England and Wales in the annual assessment of salmon stocks and fisheries in England and Wales 2023.

• you can find information on rod catches from individual rivers in our salmonid and freshwater fisheries statistics for England and Wales 2023 report

12. Research and development

Our Chief Scientist’s Group, National Fisheries Service and National Fisheries Laboratory use science to make sure we have a rigorous evidence base to support:

• regulation
• sustainable fisheries management

Between April 2023 and March 2024, we were engaged in various projects to improve our understanding of issues affecting fish populations.

We carry out our own research but also work in partnership, where we can achieve shared research objectives in a cost-effective manner. The Environment Agency Chief Scientist’s Annual Review provides further information on science across our organisation, much of which will directly or indirectly benefit our fisheries. In 2023 to 2024, our scientific work included:

Strategic review of data and information on coarse fish in rivers

Coarse fish survey data, from 1980 to 2023, are being examined for 17 rivers across England to describe the status and trends over time in populations of major river coarse fish species, with respect to river type and geographical region.

Review of salmon stock assessment methodologies

A review of all aspects of our salmon stock assessment methods and the management decision structures which underpin our fishery exploitation management measures as well as other catchment management actions. This work will report in 2024 to 2025 and is a collaboration with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Natural Resources Wales and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.

Investigating red skin disease in wild salmon

We have been collecting samples and carrying out comprehensive diagnostic testing to understand the cause and effect of red skin disease, an emerging skin condition of wild Atlantic salmon first reported from Sweden around 2015. We are monitoring the disease nationally and have worked with other organisations to develop a severity guide to standardise reporting of the disease across the UK and Ireland. A collaborative study between EA and Cefas has recently revealed a novel virus in our samples and further investigations are underway to determine if this virus could be the cause of the disease.

Developing eDNA tools to improve monitoring of non-native species

Experts within our Monitoring Laboratories have been working with specialists in our Chief Scientist Group to develop new ways to detect harmful non-native species and pathogens in water samples. These approaches involve detecting genetic material shed from organisms (known as environmental DNA or eDNA) and provide early warning of new invasions. This will allow us to improve our management of high-risk species to protect fisheries.  

Research and Development of fish and Eel Entrainment Mitigation at pumping stations (REDEEM 2)

We are improving our understanding of fish and eel behaviour to assess the effectiveness of existing and new technologies for minimising entrainment at pumping stations. National Fisheries Services is working with the University of Hull on this project. Numerous peer-reviewed papers have been published in scientific journals, to ensure our research is available to the wider academic and fisheries management community.

Glass eel migration

We are studying the oceanic migration of eel from their spawning grounds to our coasts and rivers (with Bournemouth University), improving eel pass design and performance (with the Zoological Society of London) and examining the attractant or deterrent effects of different light sources and intensities on glass eel (with the University of Southampton).

Movement ecology of riverine fishes in fragmented wetland systems

The recruitment and movements of bream and pike are being studied in the River Bure (Norfolk Broads) in relation to biomanipulation and saline intrusion. Saline incursion occurs naturally when tides and winds combine to drive salt water from the North Sea into the freshwater Broadland Rivers, but such incidents may occur more often as our climate changes. This Environment Agency project includes a PhD studentship at Bournemouth University, which we are match funding.

Water temperature projections for England’s rivers

Scientists from the Chief Scientist’s Group and University of Birmingham have used climate data, land cover and river properties to create models for monthly river water temperature projections to 2080. This work projects that average water temperatures of the warmest summer months will rise by about 0.6°C each decade, with rivers in upland areas warming quicker than lowland chalk streams. Monthly average daytime projections indicate that in some areas temperatures will reach thresholds that are likely to impact sensitive fish species such as salmon and trout.