by
A.P.C. Kerstens
Utrecht
The Netherlands
This report summarizes various sociological inquiries into angling which have been carried out in the Netherlands over the last ten years. Specific mention is made of a study which was done in 1969 in central Utrecht. The paper discusses in detail whether there is an equilibrium between the need for facilities for recreational fishery and the existing supply of such facilities. The importance of a well balanced planning of sport fishery resources and management is emphasized.
L'auteur résume différentes enquêtes sociologiques sur la pêche à la ligne, effectuées aux Pays-Bas au cours des dix dernières années. Il mentionne notamment une étude faite en 1969 dans le centre de la province d'Utrecht. Il étudie en détail le point de savoir s'il existe un rapport entre les installations nécessaires pour la pêche récréative et les facilités existantes à cet égard. Il souligne l'importance d'une planification bien équilibrée des ressources de la pêche sportive et de leur aménagement.
In the Netherlands several sociological inquiries have been carried out in angling in the past decade which have yielded much data. In this paper we analyse whether these data tell us if there is, or not, an equilibrium between the demand and supply of recreational fishing facilities and whether the objective of the policy on outdoor recreation for sport fisheries is reached.
In 1969 Kamphorst published the results of a research project. He detected three types of anglers in his inquiry in central Utrecht:
Occasional anglers, i.e., those who fish fewer than 16 times per fishing season;
Hobby anglers, i.e., those who go fishing 16–39 times per season; and
Passionate anglers, i.e., those who go fishing 40 or more times per season.
The types did not only differ with respect to fishing frequency but also with respect to being club members, holding special contribution receipts, fishing less or more often than they used to, fishing six or more times in winter, fishing before work, fishing after work, angling to catch a certain kind of fish and level of education and social status.
Ter Haar (1971) made an inquiry into the use of sport fishing facilities on eastern Flevoland (Gaudet, 1972). He divided the anglers he found on site in this polder into the same types as Kamphorst did in 1969 in central Utrecht: occasional (19 percent), hobby (41 percent) and passionate (38 percent).
The occasional fisherman was more often found on the special angling sites. He was usually accompanied by a member(s) of his family. In the group of the more passionate anglers, more members fish than in the other groups of anglers; the more the recreation pursuit is important in itself to the angler, the more he is looking for company having the same recreational preferences.
No significant relation between the type of angler and the spot where the fishing took place was found. The passionate and hobby anglers fished for a longer period of time than the occasional anglers and the occasional anglers ha a lower mobility than the other two groups. The three types did not have very different opinions about the special angling sites.
It can be concluded that there are some behaviour differences between the three types of anglers. With regards to special sites there were no differences. The types of fisher men adapt themselves, to a high degree, to the situation they find at the waterside.
In 1971 a preliminary investigation was made by the Institute of Applied Sociology among anglers on three project sites for sport fishing. One of the important conclusions of this inquiry was that there was a close relation between the characteristics of the angler and the characteristics of the project. The research workers concluded that to construct a typology of anglers and to estimate the extent of types in this typology a household survey was needed.
The project survey gives a good picture of the use which sport fishermen make of the site and their motives to visit it. On one site one will find a selection of anglers who already have adapted their wishes to the real situation. A random selection of anglers on a site gives an over-representation of anglers who are frequent visitors. A biased selection of the total population of the anglers may result unless corrected. Generalization is then not possible.
The conclusion was that a better strategy would be to organize first a household survey. Once a good picture of the real variations in behavioural patterns, wishes and preferences is found than an adequate selection of sites can give a more exact and detailed insight into these patterns, wishes and preferences. Carrying out on site research following household surveys can act as a good control mechanism.
The on site research was followed by a large-scale nation-wide study for the purpose of which nearly 1 500 male anglers of 15 years of age or more, holding fishing documents, were interviewed at home in the beginning of 1973.
Simultaneously a random sample consisting of 1 150 members of the Dutch male population was interviewed to ascertain whether the anglers constituted a specific category in one or more respects and to compare between angling and other kinds of leisure pastimes. The results of this research project are published in a report entitled “De Nederlandse Sport-visser” (The Dutch Angler), Nijmegen, 1975.
According to the results of this inquiry it can be said that demand and supply are in several respects not quite in an equilibrium. On busy days, for instance, some anglers are dissatisfied with the too short distance separating them from other anglers. Matters which are considered important by very many anglers (70 percent or more) are, among others, tranquillity, beautiful scenery, possibility ot use a row boat, the good fish population, clean water, the possibility of walking along the shores, provision of litter bins and enough distance between anglers.
The conclusion is that very often there is not a good equilibrium between demand and supply and one must conclude that perhaps this kind of survey is not adequate. Priorities for different types of anglers cannot be determined.
One of the drawbacks of research on site was the impossibility to get a representative insight into the variation in the behaviour, wishes and preferences of the anglers. The anglers adapt themselves to the situation they find on the site.
For management and policy purposes it is very important to know whether there are certain types of fishermen. It would therefore be possible, when equipping fishing water or when creating new sites, to take into account which types of anglers there are and which are the proportion of the total angler population belonging to different types.
The research workers endeavoured to find out whether constant combination of fishing behaviour characteristics occurred. The result was disappointing. One of the reasons for doing the home survey was to identify the types characterized by specific groups regarding the equipment and management of the sites. On the basis of a small group of correlated behaviour characteristics, anglers can be classified according to the degree of intensity of their fishing behaviour. The extreme type is called keen angler (10 percent); the opposite extreme type is called less keen angler (11 percent).
There was a second small group of correlated characteristics indicating a difference in the distribution of the fishing behaviour. On the basis of the correlation in certain distribution data, a distinction was drawn between week-end anglers and everyday anglers. To the category of week-end anglers belong the anglers who fish more than 5 km from home on week-ends only (10 percent). Eighteen percent of the anglers belong to the category who fish at less than 5 km from home and fish on week-ends, working days and after work, the everyday anglers. Do these groups have different wishes with respect to equipment, management of the water and fish population?
The category of keen anglers, who attach importance to a natural environment, tranquillity, the fishing water, boat facilities or the quality of the fish population, is roughly 15 percent larger than less keen anglers.
The week-end anglers attach more importance to a natural environment and to tranquillity than everyday anglers do; however, nearly half of the everyday anglers also consider these aspects important. Other differences have not been found. The conclusion was that it is almost impossible to pursue a separate policy for separate types of anglers.
Something is known now about social characteristics of anglers and their behaviour. Some types (or categories) of anglers differ in behaviour and facilities preferences.
There are not until now types of anglers with specific groups of wishes regarding the characteristics of the fishing water.
It is my opinion that we can never answer this main question with the result of existing research in the Netherlands. These static inquiries are only a means to approximate this central goal. A strategy of planning in which there is a dynamic integration of findings of research and fishery-management-goals-formulation is required. We are now developing such a strategy in the Netherlands. The leading goal is not to reach a well balanced demand-supply situation but to stimulate a development in this direction.
A research programme integrated in a dynamic system of policy making and management-goals-formulation is needed.
In this system three levels can be distinguished: a normative level, a strategic level and an operational level. For these levels different types of research must be done:
- normative level: inquiries into attitudes, preferences, latent needs, social and situational factors influencing possible gaps between needs and actual behaviour, trends in numbers of anglers, the position of angling in the pattern of leisure pastimes, etc. (normative need concept);
- strategic level: comparison of the demand with the supply on a regional level (comparative need). The position of angling in the system of governmental management regarding outdoor recreation on a regional level;
- operational level: on site research to explore how projects are used in relation to (differences in) management (felt need, expressed need). A permanent confrontation of demand and supply on a regional basis can be useful. A means to do this is the symap technique (Hodges and Van Doren, 1975). This technique or similar techniques can be used to obtain basic information to make public participation - citizens and bodies, also, the angling associations - more fruitful to arrive at exact and detailed decisions about what kind of facilities and provisions must be created. Thus technical and social planning might be integrated.
By making this system dynamic, by building into it a feed-back system one may manage to guide the development of angling possibilities and facilities to a well balanced demand-supply equilibrium which means that the differentiation in angling can become optimal.
This plea for integrating research in a dynamic planning system is made considering that the planning of facilities for sport fisheries must become an integrated part of the planning of (outdoor) recreation facilities and physical planning in general.
On the one hand the research must be done on the basis of theories and basic concepts, respectively for instance the career concept and the model of the macro- and micro-circle of the angling experiment - (Norling, 1968; Driver and Tocher, 1970) and on the other hand description of the behaviour of anglers on a site is necessary to acquire insight into the way anglers use and evaluate the different sites.
Moreover, experiments must be done. To elucidate this proposition one must remember that one of the important conclusions of the research was that anglers adapt their behaviour and wishes to the situation of a site; the supply is very much influencing the behaviour of the anglers.
One of the most important tasks of the planners and of the research workers is to explore new angling possibilities and facilities. This means that experimental possibilities and facilities must be constructed by the planners and research workers. In fact this is already done but not always in a systematic way. To do this the research workers must try to discover the special significance of these new possibilities and facilities for different categories and groups of anglers.
One of the aspects to which special attention must be paid is the psychological significance of the different landscape configurations of these experimental sites for the whole fishing experience of the different types and categories of anglers. One of the findings of the inquiry done by the Institute for Applied Sociology was that considering the reason for the preference of a specific type of water, it is especially noticeable that, for those who prefer to fish in polder waters - polders were on an average rated higher by anglers than canals and rivers - these have their advantages on account of tranquillity. Sixty two percent stated that reason, as against 38 percent of all those who fish in more than one water (72 percent fish in more than one water).
Driver, B.L. and S.R. Tocher, 1970 Toward a behavioral interpretation of recreational engagements, with implications for planning. In Elements of Outdoor Recreation Planning Ed. B.L. Driver, Michigan
Gaudet, J.-L. (ed.), 1972 Report of the first European consultation on the economic evaluation of sport and commercial fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Netherlands, The Hague, pp. 116–20
Haar, E. ter, 1971 The use of sport fishing facilities in “Eastern Flevoland”. Summary EIFAC - consultation. The Hague, 1972. (Lelystad, 31 Dec. 1971)
Hodges, L. and W. van Doren, 1975 Synagraphic mapping as a tool in locating and evaluating the special distribution of municipal recreation facilities. Journal of Leisure Research vol. 4, No. 4, 1975, pp. 341–53
Institute for Applied Sociology (I.T.S.), 1972 Angling in the Netherlands. (Sportvisserij in Nederland). Nijmegen, maart 1972
Institute for Applied Sociology, 1972 Preliminary Sportfishing Survey in the Netherlands (conducted for the Commission Sport Fisheries). Nijmegen, December 1971. Paper for the EIFAC - consultation in The Hague. Spring, 1972
Kamphorst, T.J., 1969 De sportvisserij in Midden-Utrecht. Mededelingen van het Sociologisch Instituut van de Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht (Angling in Central Utrecht Bulletin of the Sociological Institute of the State University of Utrecht). No. 55, Utrecht, 1969
Kamphorst, T.J., 1972 Angling in Central Utrecht, a Field Reconnaissance. (Appeared as No. 23 in the series: Bulletins of the Sociological Institute of the State University of Utrecht, 1969). Summary Paper for the EIFAC - consultation in The Hague. Spring, 1972
Norling, L., 1968 Economic evaluation of inland sport fishing. European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 1968 (EIFAC Technical Paper No. 7)
Steinmetz, B., Development of sport fisheries. Directorate of Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Utrecht (no date). The Netherlands
