Contents
- What these outdoor recreation participation statistics measure
- Fishing participation: freshwater leads in people, days and trips
- Hunting participation: big game accounts for the largest type count
- Wildlife watching: around-the-home activity dominates reported days
- Rural and urban participation patterns
- Reading the figures in context
- Sources
What these outdoor recreation participation statistics measure
The 2022 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation offers a detailed snapshot of three ways Americans spend time outdoors: fishing, hunting and wildlife watching. Its headline counts cover U.S. residents ages 16 and older. The report also measures activity days and trips, so participation can be viewed both as the number of people involved and the volume of activity they reported.
Those measures answer different questions. A participant count describes how many people took part at least once; days and trips describe how much activity was recorded. They should not be added together as though they were people. The survey’s wildlife-watching categories also distinguish watching around the home from watching away from home, while fishing and hunting are divided into activity types.
All figures below refer to 2022, rather than current-year participation or a forecast. They describe the survey’s stated U.S. population of people ages 16 and older. The 2022 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation reports these measures in its national tables and comparative highlights.
Fishing participation: freshwater leads in people, days and trips
The survey counted 39,935,437 people who fished in 2022. Freshwater fishing accounted for 35,069,217 participants, while saltwater fishing accounted for 12,704,743. Because people can fish in more than one setting, the freshwater and saltwater counts overlap and should not be summed to reproduce the total.
Activity volume shows a similar freshwater emphasis. All fishing generated 785,226,417 participation days and 462,733,320 trips. Of that total, freshwater fishing represented 559,005,615 days and 359,051,599 trips. Saltwater fishing accounted for 123,110,918 days and 103,681,721 trips. The type-specific figures do not add to the total, reflecting that the categories presented are not an exhaustive, mutually exclusive partition of all fishing activity.
| Fishing measure, 2022 | Total fishing | Freshwater | Saltwater |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participants | 39,935,437 | 35,069,217 | 12,704,743 |
| Participation days | 785,226,417 | 559,005,615 | 123,110,918 |
| Trips | 462,733,320 | 359,051,599 | 103,681,721 |
These totals describe different dimensions of participation. In the report’s comparative table, freshwater anglers averaged 16 fishing days and 10 trips in 2022. Saltwater anglers averaged 10 days and 8 trips. These averages are per angler in each type, not per U.S. resident. Together with the larger freshwater participant count, they show that freshwater fishing was both the more common type in the survey and the one with higher reported average days and trips per angler. Survey tables and comparative fishing highlights
Hunting participation: big game accounts for the largest type count
Total hunting included 14,374,589 participants ages 16 and older in 2022, with 240,752,065 participation days and 165,002,494 trips. Among the listed hunting types, big-game hunting had the largest participant count, at 11,521,659. Small-game hunting had 5,290,082 participants, migratory-bird hunting had 2,812,364, and hunting other animals had 2,300,439. These type counts may overlap: a person who hunted more than one type can appear in multiple categories, so they should not be treated as separate groups whose sum equals the total.
Big-game hunting also led the specific activity-volume measures reported here, with 134,683,681 days and 91,610,000 trips. Small-game hunting generated 33,996,768 trips, while migratory-bird hunting generated 19,786,340 trips. The report’s comparative highlights indicate that big-game hunters averaged 12 hunting days in 2022; small-game hunters averaged 7 days, migratory-bird hunters 8 days, and hunters of other animals 9 days. Those averages describe hunters within each category, not all adults.
The distinction between total hunting and individual types matters when interpreting the scale of the activity. The total participant figure counts people who hunted, while the type figures identify participation in particular forms of hunting. The reported averages add another perspective on intensity, but do not imply that every hunter spent that number of days afield. Survey tables and comparative hunting highlights
Wildlife watching: around-the-home activity dominates reported days
Wildlife watching had 148,280,092 participants ages 16 and older in 2022. The survey separates this activity into watching around the home and watching away from home. Around-the-home wildlife watching involved 146,502,604 participants; away-from-home watching involved 73,334,491. These groups overlap, since someone can watch wildlife both at home and on trips.
The contrast is especially clear in activity days. The survey recorded 12,993,936,858 wildlife-watching days overall. Around-the-home watching contributed 10,550,051,963 days, compared with 2,443,884,896 days away from home. The report recorded 1,075,753,274 away-from-home wildlife-watching trips; that is the trip figure shown for the away-from-home category and total in the table, so it is presented once rather than counted twice.
Participation rates show how broad each form of activity was across the age-16-and-older population: 56% watched wildlife around the home and 28% did so away from home. These percentages are shares of the national population, not shares of wildlife watchers. The substantial difference in days is consistent with the fact that around-the-home watching can occur repeatedly in ordinary surroundings, while the away-from-home measure records trips and associated days. The counts alone do not explain why people participated or how they used their time.
| Wildlife-watching measure, 2022 | Total | Around the home | Away from home |
|---|---|---|---|
| Participants | 148,280,092 | 146,502,604 | 73,334,491 |
| Participation days | 12,993,936,858 | 10,550,051,963 | 2,443,884,896 |
| Trips | — | — | 1,075,753,274 |
| Participation rate | — | 56% | 28% |
The survey’s definitions distinguish watching wildlife near home from traveling away from home to watch it. The categories overlap, and the trip count is not a participant count. Keeping those distinctions visible makes the scale easier to interpret without treating every day or trip as a different person. Wildlife-watching tables and national survey results
Rural and urban participation patterns
Residence was associated with different participation rates in the 2022 results. Among U.S. residents ages 16 and older, 23% of rural residents fished, compared with 13% of urban residents. The report’s table defines these percentages as the share of each residence group’s population that participated, so the comparison is between rates, not raw numbers of rural and urban anglers.
Wildlife watching away from home followed the same direction: 32% of rural residents participated, compared with 27% of urban residents. For watching around the home, the reported rates were 67% among rural residents and 54% among urban residents. In both settings, the rural rate was higher in this survey snapshot. These figures establish a difference in participation rates; they do not identify what caused it, and they do not show that the number of rural participants exceeded the number of urban participants.
| Activity and setting, 2022 | Rural participation rate | Urban participation rate |
|---|---|---|
| Fishing | 23% | 13% |
| Wildlife watching away from home | 32% | 27% |
| Wildlife watching around the home | 67% | 54% |
The rates make clear why population context matters. A higher rate within a group is not the same as a larger national participant count, especially when the sizes of the rural and urban populations differ. The survey supports comparisons of participation prevalence by residence; it does not, in these cited figures, establish the reasons for the gap. Fishing and wildlife-watching participation by population density of residence
Reading the figures in context
Across the three activities, the survey measures different types of outdoor engagement. Fishing and hunting are reported through participants, days and trips, with additional activity-type breakdowns. Wildlife watching includes both frequent observation around the home and travel away from home. The result is not one interchangeable measure of “outdoor recreation,” but a set of participation indicators with different definitions.
For a broad comparison, the 2022 counts show wildlife watching reaching far more people than fishing or hunting among U.S. residents ages 16 and older. Within fishing, freshwater participation exceeded saltwater participation, and freshwater anglers reported higher average days and trips. Within the hunting types shown, big-game hunting had the largest participant count and average days among the supplied comparisons. For wildlife watching, around-the-home participation was more prevalent and generated more reported days than away-from-home watching. Rural participation rates were higher than urban rates for fishing and both wildlife-watching settings in the reported comparisons.
These are survey findings for 2022 and the defined age group. They should not be read as counts for children, as a census of every outdoor activity, or as evidence of change over time. The report provides a useful measured baseline for fishing, hunting and wildlife watching, while each statistic remains tied to its own population, activity definition and unit.