Wildfire Smoke and Crowded Water Topped the List of Trip-Killers in a Wyoming Angler Survey

Wildfire smoke and crowding had the largest impact on trips taken and spending in a new Wyoming angler survey. The authors point out that neither is directly related to the act of fishing.

How the survey worked

Researchers surveyed anglers who fished the Snake River headwaters of Wyoming. They mailed or emailed a questionnaire to 5,000 people who bought licenses in Teton County and the neighboring Park and Sublette counties. The survey was a discrete choice experiment about trip traits that climate change may threaten.

They got 771 responses (244 online, 527 by mail), a response rate of 15.42%. The team then ran a simulation to project how trips and spending would change if climate change altered parts of a fishing trip. Average spending on the most recent trip to Teton County was $2,482 across both groups.

What they found

The analysis split anglers into two groups, 55.2% and 44.8% of responses. The first group was the one more likely to skip a trip because of smoke or crowding. The second group was less responsive to changing conditions.

Within the first group, the biggest predicted drops came from more wildfire smoke (7.9% fewer trips and $4.0 million less spending) and more crowding (5.7% fewer trips and $2.9 million less). In the second group, avoiding smoke produced the largest change, at 6.9% fewer trips and $2.6 million less spending. Avoiding other anglers also produced a large change, at 5% and $1.8 million. A scenario the authors call "hot and smoky" had the biggest effect of any, with projected losses of more than $6 million in total.

The catch

The authors are upfront that the trip traits they tested relate to climate scenarios but are not exact projections of them. Their list of traits is not fully comprehensive and includes only the most applicable traits based on stakeholder input. Their results refer to specific trip traits rather than to climate change directly. They also note that future climate change could draw different anglers with different preferences to the area.

The response rate was just over 15%. This is one study of one region, not a consensus finding.

What this means if you plan trips around smoke

My read, not the study's.

I fish the Sierra Nevada regularly, but I haven't fished the Snake River headwaters, so I'm not going to tell you how this plays out in Wyoming. What the survey suggests is that some anglers weigh smoke and crowds heavily in deciding whether to go. I can't back that with a trip log of my own.

If crowds are what push you off a river, getting out early is the one lever I'd trust, since it's the habit I lean on in general. [INTERNAL LINK: how to find uncrowded trout water] I'd treat the dollar figures as the survey's projections, not forecasts. The authors call angling a significant economic driver for many rural communities in the Intermountain West.

Citation

Hofstedt, Hansen, Bastian, & Walters (2026). Climate change impacts on fishing trip preferences and expenditures in the Intermountain West. North American Journal of Fisheries Management. https://doi.org/10.1093/najfmt/vqag078