Maine Named as One of America's Favorite Fishing States

The state of Maine is receiving high accolades for one of the country's most beloved pastimes.

According to the popular fishing website Fishing Booker, Maine is the 6th best state in the country to fish in. Not only is this a great ranking, but it's also the highest-scored state in New England. Only Rhode Island joined Maine in the top 10, finishing with an 8th ranking.

Fishing Booker goes into tremendous detail of how they came up with their rankings. It involved a scoring process that included four major categories: angler's interest, facilities, financial, and geography. These were broken down even more into 17 subcategories to make it as detailed as possible. You can read more about the methodology here.

Maine finished with a total of 116 points, good enough to share the 6th ranking with Maryland. According to the article, Maine is actually the number one state in America for facilities. This category includes number of marinas, gear and tackle stores, and charter companies. Apparently, our fine state dwarfs the rest of the country.

Maine also scored well for its affordability. According to Fishing Booker, charters and fishing license prices are much easier to digest in Maine than in most states.

Here is a little more of why Fishing Booker scored Maine so well.

On the saltwater front, anything from massive Striped Bass, Pollock, Haddock, and Sharks to magnificent Bluefin Tuna is in the cards...Freshwater aficionados will have a lot of fun going after Bass, Trout, Perch, and Pike, too. You can also go ice fishing for these species for a change of pace, so the sky’s the limit!

What a tremendous ranking and advertisement for Maine's fishing grounds and community. It's easy for us Mainers to talk it up. However, seeing this data for an independent source really helps in our argument of Maine being an amazing outdoor mecca.

As for number one, that was also a tie. Both Florida and Michigan took home the top honors. You can find the complete rankings here.

Tight lines.

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Thanks to our great listeners we were able to compile a list of many of Maine's great restaurants, cafes, pubs and bakeries that are worth a long drive to get to.

These great spots can be found across the state and waiting for you to give them a try.

How many have you been to?

Gallery Credit: Chris Sedenka

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