The development of recreational fishery is an important part of promoting modern fishery construction, and an important measure to implement the rural revitalization strategy and the marine economy construction. Based on the literature sample data of the world’s leisure fisheries related research topics in the Web of Science database from 1966 to 2018, this paper uses CiteSpace measurement software to systematically sort out the international leisure fishery through literature citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence and sudden word detection. Research frontiers and hotspots show that: (1) The knowledge structure of international leisure fishery research is based on biology, resource science and environmental science. At the same time, the research frontier of international leisure fishery has gradually turned to the integrity of society-ecosystem and sustainable development in the past 10 years; (2) Recreational fishery is a typical composite interdisciplinary subject. Interdisciplinary comprehensive research is an important guarantee for its disciplinary development. The development of international recreational fisheries has formed a relatively complete research relying on multidisciplinary integration; (3) New technical methods such as big data technology, 3S technology, simulation technology and complex system models are widely used in the recreational fisheries, which will provide efficient and accurate technical support to solve comprehensive, dynamic and systematic problems. Finally, the study suggests that the domestic research on recreational fisheries should focus on the multi-scale nature of the research area, the integration of interdisciplinary disciplines and the attention to environmental issues in the development process of recreational fisheries in the future.