Freshwater game‐angling is a growing tourism phenomenon creating modern, increasingly global, spaces of consumption where performances are acted out in varied destinations. These performances uphold sporting traditions dating from fifteenth century England, cemented in the Victorian era. This paper demonstrates how and why freshwater angling has grown to become one of the largest leisure activities. It questions whether game‐angling tourism has become a profound ecotourism, drawing insights from sociology and geography to explore how game‐angling tourism traverses the society/nature dualism. It finds that angling tourism is a compelling, relatively undiscovered, vehicle for understanding our passion for consuming the natural world. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.