The United States is a big country, but has a comparatively small seaboard, some 19,000 miles.

A large part of the population live a long way inland with no easy access to coastal fishing.

The UK is a small narrow island country, and with a coast of 18,000 miles, we have around just 1,000 miles less of angling opportunity than does the US

And all of our population lives not very far away from saltwater.

From an American document:

"The recreational saltwater fishing industry is valued at approximately $30 billion annually."

The UK Net Benefits report says that UK Recreational Sea Angling is worth £1.3 billion.

So each US coastal mile is worth $1,578,950 (£897,130)

and each UK coastal mile is worth just £7,222


If my calculations are right, then maybe there is some room for growth in the Recreational Sea Angling sector's contribution to the UK economy!

Tight Lines - leon

Hmmmm!

Have I been misinformed?

http://www.surialink.com/GIS/stats_summ.asp


USA = 19,924 miles £855,524 per mile

UK = 12,429 miles £104,594 per mile

Still a lot of room for growth to catch up though!

TL - leon

[ 05. October 2005, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

I agree totally.

Just need some fish for people to catch.

Ah!

In a trailblazing 1967 paper Mandelbrot showed, for instance, that the coastline length of Britain was anything but an "objective" constant. Instead it grew as one shrank the size of the ruler used to lay out the coast. In fact the measured coastline, and many other perimeters, grow as the inverse of the ruler size, raised to a power: perimeter=(1/R)^D, where R is the ruler size and D is the fractal "dimensionality."

http://psj.nsu.ru/news/aip/aipnc.php?n=574



TL - leon

Did you not watch COAST in the UK youre never more than 75mile from the Sea

Matt

Interesting Leon. However, our coastline is mostly devoid of fish. I think the spending on sea angling is declining rapidly. Well it must be. I used to find it difficult to find a space on the beach sometimes, now I find difficulty spotting another angler! Mostly there are none! It's a lonley old passtime now, nobody to chat with. I'm going to Hythe Friday night, bet you a pound, I will be the only one there!