Fishing Floats Minnesota’s Economic Boat

Minnesota has 11,842 lakes, 18,000 miles of fishable rivers and streams and has 90,000 miles of coastline, more than California, Hawai’i and Florida combined. And will all that fishable space come 35,400 Minnesota jobs.

Of the million and a half licensed fishermen in Minnesota about 855,000 of them are urban anglers. And the Brainerd Lakes Chamber of Commerce says it’s important to get them up to the Brainerd Lakes Area not just to fish but to spend money.

With a warmer spring the fishing and boating seasons are already off to a fast start and both industries say they’re expecting it to carry into the summer fishing season.

Last year the Brainerd Lakes Area got about two and half million dollars of ad exposure across Minnesota. And they Brainerd Lakes Chamber says this summer they’ll see how many extra fishermen that ad money will bring in.