The river, which tallied about 31,000 angler days in a newly released survey, also topped the list of most popular places to fish in Otago.
"It’s no surprise the mighty Clutha River is so popular with anglers," Otago Fish & Game chief executive Ian Hadland said.
"People keep coming back to this river as it’s highly productive and accessible at so many places as it flows from Lake Wānaka to the sea for more than 300km."
Closer to Dunedin, the lower Taieri was the region’s second-most popular river fishery behind the Clutha.
The findings are revealed in the just-released 2021-22 national angler survey report completed by Niwa for Fish & Game.
The survey, conducted every seven years, records angling activity for all lake, river and canal fisheries managed by Fish & Game.
Data was collected on the number of angling days for each fishery — one angler fishing on one day, irrespective of the number of hours spent fishing.
About 15,000 people were surveyed across the 2021-22 season.
The upper Clutha catchment was the most highly fished with lakes Wakatipu, Wānaka, Dunstan and Hāwea rounding out the top five most popular spots in the region.
"This data also helps to direct our compliance focus on where fishing activity is at its highest. Rangers will be out checking licences at all these fishing hot spots this summer," Mr Hadland said.
Otago’s Fish & Game region had one of the highest uptakes of fishing licences nationally at almost 8% of the population.
This rate was only surpassed by neighbouring regions Central South Island (15%) and Southland (10%), showing the importance of freshwater fishing to residents of the lower South Island. West Coast (7%) was the fourth-ranked.
"It shows how much freshwater fishing is an integral part of the lifestyle in the lower half of the South Island."
Anglers in Otago showed a slight preference for lakes with just over half of sports fishing occurring in still waters.
The Dunedin reservoirs, Southern and Sullivans Dam, both showed a high level of use that has increased since the surveys began in 1994.
Mr Hadland said both reservoir fisheries were maintained by hatchery releases.
