Fish for Life is the new industry body representing suppliers to the recreational fishing industry.

Members include both suppliers who work solely with fishing customers (eg, tackle and bait suppliers) and others who service a range of customers including a substantial proportion of fishing people.

This latter group includes accommodation and hospitality, fuel suppliers, tourism operators, vehicles sales and service (especially vehicles and equipment used for towing boats), caravan and camping suppliers and all the restaurants, pubs, shops and tourism operators who benefit from the support of fishing people when they are not actually fishing.

The number of WA businesses which rely heavily on fishing or fishing-inspired tourism is certainly in the thousands. For many coastal towns fishing is mainspring for the wider economy.

To date, the fishing industry has been represented at peak body level primarily by WAFIC (representing commercial fishing) and Recfishwest (representing recreational fishers).

Businesses servicing recreational fishers have been the “missing” third arm of the sector, that is now represented by Fish for Life.