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Securing a future for fishing

First-ever UK Angling Summit set to address industry concerns and tackle retention challenges

A man sat helping a little boy fishing, both are smiling towards the camera.

@Canal and Rivers Trust

by Angling Times |

Published on5th November 2026 at 6.00pm

Later this month, the angling industry will come together for a ‘warts and all’ examination of the state of the sport in the UK, and plans to safeguard the sport’s future are set to be revealed.

Dubbed the UK Angling Summit, the inaugural event has been organised by the Angling Trades Association (ATA) and will take place on November 19 at the Arden Hotel, in Birmingham.

There will be high-profile speakers from across the fishing world present, with stakeholders from angling’s main disciplines – coarse, game and sea – set to attend.

This week, we spoke to ATA Chairman, Andrew Race, who gave an insight into their motivation in creating the Summit, and their hoped-for outcomes from the gathering.

ADDRESSING RETENTION

One of the key areas of concern ahead of the Summit is that of retention – keeping people in angling and forging a lifelong journey in the sport.

“Over the last few years, we’ve seen an increase in overall rod licence sales, which has been largely fuelled by juniors, as well as by senior and disabled anglers,” Andrew said. “While this is positive news, sales of the main rod licence product, the two- and three-rod licence, have not gone up. In fact, they’re slightly down. The situation we have is that we are struggling to retain anglers, and many of the juniors that enter the sport are not sticking with it.”

Andrew believes the answer is for the industry to come together more to work on helping reverse that trend.

“The ATA is first and foremost about business, but we need anglers to do business with,” he explained.

“At the Summit, we want to bring the industry together and show them the data, warts and all, tell them what the problems are and what we believe is needed to ensure a sustainable future for UK fishing. We want businesses to still be here in 20 years, and to do so, a new wave of anglers must be retained.”

FORGING ANGLERS

At the Summit, ideas will be put forward as to what the sport can do to address this challenge, some of which Andrew shared with us.

“We have a few ideas on what the problems are,” he said. “In all sports there is a drop off among 16 to 20-year olds, as life tends to get in the way. But to keep them in touch with fishing, we need to make angling as accessible and convenient as possible, be this through work with angling clubs or local venues.

“We also want to develop recruitment structures more specifically for this ‘missing generation’. In the past, companies like Rolls Royce had fishing clubs, which kept young employees in touch with angling.”

These businesses no longer have clubs, but the ATA hopes to develop processes that allow people to easily come together and fish.

Two man smiling at each other whilst both holding a big fish they have caught

“For example, a group of mates could join together in a pub and form an ‘angling club’ – they wouldn’t have exclusive fishing rights anywhere, but they would become a group that could travel around and visit different venues,” Andrew explained.

“For this to be as accessible as possible, fisheries would have tackle available for hire, even on-site coaches, allowing groups to rock-up for a day’s fishing with minimal effort, and in doing so, stay in touch with fishing.”

Additionally, there are plans to expand the successful Take a Friend Fishing initiative, encouraging current anglers to engage with their friends as much as possible.

“Currently, this initiative is tied to freshwater anglers, as it allows rod licence-holders to apply for a free one-day licence, but we want to expand this conceptually, encouraging all types of angler to share the sport,” Andrew added.

UNITY REQUIRED

To build such infrastructure, the industry needs to pull in the same direction, led by one focal point, which Andrew says will be the ATA.

“The Summit will be a coming-together and an enlightenment for the industry, in which we will cough up the data and encourage businesses to sign up,” he said. “By investing with us, they are investing in a structure to develop retention. We need to keep angling as a top five ‘alternative weekend activity’, and to do that, we as an industry need to make fishing more attractive.”

Although future plans will be a key aspect of the Summit, current concerns from those within the industry will also be addressed.

“Alongside presentations from the Environment Agency and the top man at England Cricket – an organisation with similar retention challenges to fishing – we will be running a series of ‘fireside chats’, in which figures from across angling will sit on stage and answer a wide range of questions, ranging from barriers to independent business through to overall concerns,” Andrew added.

“There will also be a talk on lead restrictions from the European Fishing Tackle and Trade Association.

“All being well, this Angling Summit will be the first of a yearly event – we plan to bring the industry together each year, establishing it as a regular element in the angling calendar.”

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