DCAL Survey on Attitudes to the Sport of Angling

The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) today published ‘Attitudes towards angling by adults in Northern Ireland’ which reports findings from the Northern Ireland Omnibus Survey April 2013. Key findings: * xa0Nearly one in ten people (8%) fished in Northern Ireland in last twelve months. There was a difference in the proportions of men and women who fished with 3% of women saying they fished in the last twelve months compared to 13% of men. * xa0Seven in ten people (70%) said that they had no interest in fishing. Just under a fifth of the population used to fish but no longer do so (19%). A smaller proportion of the population (4%) had never fished but would like to do so. * xa0The main factors that put people off fishing were not being interested in fishing (46%), not liking fishing (28%) and not having enough time for fishing/doing other things with their time (19%). * xa0The main factors that would encourage people to fish more were having better information on how to fish (12%), cheaper licences/permits (12%) and better fish stocks (7%). DCAL’s Research and Statistics Branch commissioned a number of questions in the April 2013 Omnibus Survey which was based on a systematic random sample of 2,200 addresses There were 1,035 respondents, aged 16 and over, to the angling questions. The data was weighted in relation to the number of eligible adults at each address as only one person within each household was surveyed, thus allowing inferences to be made about the population. A design factor was used in the analysis so that the precision of the results was maintained after weighting. The bulletin is available on: http://www.dcalni.gov.uk/index/quick-links/research_and_statistics-3.htm or from the: Research and Statistics Branch Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure Causeway Exchange 1-7 Bedford Street Belfast BT2 7EG Tel: 028 90 515101 Email: [email protected]