If you live in Florida, Texas, or Michigan – states with a lot of inland freshwater fishing locations and plenty of coastline – you know that boating is a big-time recreational activity. Those states recently ranked first through third respectively in the sale of powerboats, motors, trailers, and boating accessories, and are perennially in the top three to five spots in numbers of registered boats.


According to a just-released report by the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NNMA), 2013 was a good year for boating-related sales, which totaled $36.7 billion and were up 3.2 percent over the previous year, which itself was up 10.7 percent from 2011.

That report, the “U. S. Recreational Boating Statistical Abstract,” also proved that fishing is the most popular activity boaters engage in. Nearly 60 percent of all boaters, which numbered 88.5 million in 2013, went fishing while boating. Not surprisingly, 95 percent of boats are 26 feet or less, most of which can be trailered or otherwise transported to a body of water. We fishing folks are indeed a mobile lot.

Access Is Key

Mobility depends upon access, getting on the water once you get to the water. America is blessed with all types of water bodies, and with public access to a great many of them, often with little or no on-site fees. Until recently, that was never quantified nationally.

Another study, published on June 1 for a consortium of groups including the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation, provided the first comprehensive national assessment of boating access and related issues.

Similar to the NMMA abstract, 61 percent of “Enhancing Fishing Access Through a National Assessment of Recreational Boating Access” respondents reported that fishing was their top boating-related activity, with 67 percent having fished from a boat in the past two years. About half of the respondents rated boating access as excellent, meaning that they were very satisfied with their ability to get on the water, while only 5 percent rated it poor.

Problems at Access Sites

Getting on the water, however, is a different issue than having enough space or amenities at access sites. Congestion at ramps and difficulty getting boats in and out of the water at launch sites due to crowding or small facilities was cited as the number one problem that exists with access sites, followed by not enough mooring slips or spots to tie up. Many respondents also cited lack of restrooms, lack of access for disabled people, and poor or insufficient trash disposal as issues.

Twenty-seven percent of respondents said that the poor condition of access sites made it difficult to get boats in or out of the water. Thirty-three percent cited insufficient parking as a problem.

We Users Pay

If you're a longtime angler and boater, these findings probably don't surprise you. But you may not realize to what extent you, as a user, pay for the creation and maintenance of most access sites.

One way that occurs is through local or state taxes and fishing and boating license fees, which fund government agencies responsible for public access. A portion of these revenues go toward access needs and usually has to be budgeted and allocated annually, which often is a problem.

Another way in which anglers and boaters pay for access is through a program established in 1950 by the federal government at the request of the recreational boating and fishing communities. Now called The Sport Fish Restoration and Boating Trust Fund, that program receives revenue from excise taxes on sportfishing equipment, import duties on sportfishing equipment and boats, a portion of the federal fuel tax on gasoline attributable to motorboats and small engines, and accumulated interest. It is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and annually apportioned back to the states, where the money is used with matching state funds for angler and boater access as well as recreational fisheries management and restoration.

This Trust Fund is a fisheries conservation success story unmatched by any other country. And it is responsible for a huge amount of public access to our waters, which evidently will get more crowded as boating participation increases.