New Study Confirms What We’ve Known About Wyoming’s Fishing

If you've ever been fishing in Wyoming, you know it's a great time. It's so great that people will come from all over the world to get a chance to experience it.

Fishing has shown a major growth since 2019, while much of the world was at a standstill, many people re-established their love for the outdoors. In 2020, 55 million Americans fished, that number has dropped a little since, but being able to take the time to be outside and fishing was great for their mental health.

Realizing what they were missing, the hobby/love/excitement didn't leave after the world began to re-open.

A new study from Gambling.com, says that Wyoming is the 7th best state for fishing in the U.S. with an overall score of 70.2 out of 100.

Wait, 7th?

That means there are 6 other states that have better fishing than we do in Wyoming?

Take a look at the top 20...*California is almost the worst in 2nd to last place...take that.

The way they figure the numbers and rating system is like this.

Water area: Square miles of fishing area in a state, from USA Today.
License quantity: Number of fishing licenses purchased, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
License cost: Cost of a fishing license. Data sourced from hookedinfishing.com.
Charter cost: To find prices for a full-day fishing charter, figures were taken from tripadvisor.com, fishanywhere.com and fishingbooker.com.
Fishing Sales: Cost of equipment for fishing, from American Sportfishing Association.

Wyoming scored low in two of the categories.

Water Area: 26.5 - amount of water to fish

License Cost Score: 42.9 - cost of a fishing license.

Hard to think that Wyoming is toward the bottom of the list for the amount of water to be able to fish.

We also took a hit because of the price of the fishing license. Looking at the cost of other states, we're quite a bit higher for resident licenses. Wyoming is at $26 for residential fishing licenses. Non-resident license is quite a bit higher in Wyoming compared to many states, for an annual it's $102.

The other categories we faired really well.

License Quantity Score:  97.9 - number of fishing licenses sold

Charter Cost: 85.8 - finding a fishing charter and pricing

Fishing Sales: 97.9 - cost for buying equipment

To find out more about getting your fishing license, Wyoming fisheries or any other Wyoming fishing information reach out to Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

We talk about it often, but if you're not actually fishing in Wyoming, you're missing out on a great chance to get outside and enjoy what we're lucky to have. It's also a great way to get the kids off the couch, tech and phone and into the great outdoors.

Check out Wyoming Hookin' & Huntin' Outdoors for information, tips, tricks and fun you can have in the Wyoming outdoors.