Management of the majority of Swedish freshwater resources – and to some extent also coastal waters – is currently delegated in part by the state to property owners with fishing rights. Although knowledge on fishing rights owners is very inadequate, there are political intentions to develop activities with inland fishing as their basis. One example is fishing tourism. Fishing rights owners are central to such development.

This report presents the results from the questionnaire, which was sent to properties in order to determine how many of these had fishing rights and to obtain further information on fishing rights and how property owners view these rights. In total, the questionnaire was sent out to 5,965 properties. Of these, 3,160 (53 per cent) responded to the questionnaire and just over 20 per cent stated that they owned fishing rights. The total number of properties in Sweden with fishing rights was estimated at around 405,000, which corresponds to approximately 14 per cent of the total number of properties.

Just over 1 per cent of the properties lease out their fishing rights directly and 20 per cent through a fishing right association. The income from fishing is negligible, so the properties currently have no significant economic activity based on their fishing resources. In general, however, a large proportion of the fishing rights owners surveyed regarded their fishing as a resource for which they should receive payment if others use it. Around 60 per cent had a positive attitude to general development of businesses based on leisure fishing.