After looking at our body weight percentages my fiancee and I found we’re both about 20 pounds over our ideal weight, so we decided to loose 20 pounds each. We’ve been tracking our daily calories and exercise for about a month now. Naturally I want to count fishing as exercise (since I go fishing 3 – 4 times a week on average). My fiancee though, suggests that fishing doesn’t really count as exercise. This got me thinking, how many calories am I actually burning when I go out fishing for the day?
As an avid fly angler and occasional spin fisher, I like to think I’m burning a few calories with all the casting I do throughout the day. I decided to do some research on the subject of calories burned while fishing. I very quickly made the obvious observation that there are many different types of fishing, and the number of calories burned is going to vary significantly between them.
Types of fishing:
- Bait fishing from shore
- Casting lures from shore
- Fly fishing from shore
- Wading, either fly fishing or spin fishing lures
- Kayaking
Let’s go through the different styles of fishing listed above, and see what we can figure out about how many calories we can expect to burn while fishing. The calorie estimates are based on my own weight of 195 pounds.
Bait fishing from shore
There’s nothing wrong with throwing out a baited hook and waiting for a bite. It doesn’t do much for burning calories though, especially if you’re enjoying a few beers while doing so.
I expect bait fishing from a boat would burn a similar amount of calories, although It may be a bit higher if you’re on rough water and have to stabilise yourself.
Estimated calories burned: 60-100 per hour (without the beer)
Casting lures from shore
Frequent casting and retrieving of lures is sure to burn some calories. Some types of lures and retrieves require more effort to than others. Working a lure such as bucktail jig rapidly along the bottom, or reeling a Rapala back as fast as you can is going to require more physical effort than a steady or slow retrieve of a lure such as a Rapala or Jitterbug.
You’re also more likely to walk along the side of the river or lake when casting lures than bait fishing, since covering water tends to be more productive with lures than casting to the same spot. This extra walking will of course burn calories as well. Plus it’s great fun to try out new fishing spots up or down river from your usual honey hole.
Estimated calories burned: 170 – 270 an hour (depending on how much walking you do)
Fly fishing from shore
Similar to lure fishing, all that casting and retrieving is going to burn some calories for you. Calories burned casting flies is dependant on what kind of flys you’re casting. Are you casting small dries, an indicator rig, or huge streamers and poppers?
The type of fly fishing you do will have a bigger impact on calories burned than spin fishing. Floating dries and nymphs in current is typically fairly slow paced (not always though). Fishing streamers typically involves a more active retrieve (again not always though, dead drifts are deadly on all sorts of species).
Again, if you are walking along the shore you will burn more calories than if you just fish in one place.
Estimated calories burned: 150 – 300 per hour
Wading
Now we’re getting into burning a few calories! You’re using your largest muscles (the legs) to trudge through waist high water, sometimes with significant current. It can require significant core strength to keep your balance in the current, especially if you’re wading over slippery rocks.
Even wading is going to vary in terms of calories burned though. Wading in shallow water with little to no current with a smooth sandy bottom is going to burn less calories than wading over slippery rocks in a current, especially when waist deep in water.
Add in the fact that you will probably be casting often while wading and you have a physical activity that has the potential to burn significant calories.
Estimated calories burned: 340 – 490 calories an hour
If you buy anything below, I get some beer money (commission).
Kayak Fishing
Kayaking in itself is an excellent activity for both burning calories and catching fish! Most of the calories burned will depend on how much kayaking you do compared to how much fishing you do. The fishing from a kayak will burn some calories from casting and retrieving, but the majority of the calories burned will be from the actual kayaking.
Estimated calories burned: 420 – 500 calories an hour
All the calorie estimates above for fishing from shore can also be used to estimate the amount of calories burned when fishing from a boat as well.
So there you have it, another in a long list of good reasons to go fishing. You can now explain to your wife/husband that all those hours spent on the water are really an effort to get back into shape and live a healthy lifestyle.
Sources
http://calorielab.com
https://www.sparkpeople.com
https://blog.finishline.com/2013/08/20/exercise-awesome-fly-fishing/
captaincalculator.com
What about in a float tube?
I haven’t been able to find any information on float tube fishing specifically, atleast in terms of calories burned.
My expectation would be it would be similar to kayak fishing? there’s some energy requirements for moving around. That’s just and educated guess though.