Fishing (from boats...) down in Minnesota
From the paper this morning in Minnesota. Not about boating, but rather fishing (which is mostly done from boats here) - but participation is way down, and folks are worried, as the 16 to 44 crowd don't seem to be involved anymore. Sounds a lot like our discussion about sailing, doesn't it?
LOOK WHO’S fishing NOW
The bad news: Fewer young people are hitting Minnesota’s lakes and streams these days. The good news: Baby boomers are taking their place.
More Minnesotans are fishing today than in 2000.
The problem is, those anglers are growing older.
Minnesota Department of Natur*al Resources officials, who rely on license revenues to run the agency, have fretted for years as they’ve watched the percentage of Min*nesotans who fish drop from 40 percent in the 1970s to 29 per*cent in recent years.
Worse yet, the number of people ages 16 to 44 who fish has been declining, raising fears there won’t be a new generation of Min*nesotans plying White Bear Lake or Mille Lacs for walleyes or bass.
But this is a good-news, bad-news story, as we approach the St. Croix River season opener May 2 and the general fishing opener May 9.
Baby boom anglers appear to be filling in the gap where younger anglers are dropping off.
Fishing license sales to Min*nesotans have risen every year since 2005, according to a new DNR study, and the fishing partici*pation rate has stabilized at 29 per*cent after decades of decline.
Individual resident license sales increased about 1 percent last year, while nonresident individual licenses declined almost 10 per*cent. C.B. Bylander, DNR fish and wildlife division outreach section chief, said there is no one reason why fishing license sales increased last year. Warm summer weather, high gas prices and a DNR advertising campaign might have persuaded Minnesotans to travel to a local lake and wet a line, he said.
Tim Kelly, a DNR researcher, said the best news is that fishing participation in Minnesota seems to have leveled off since 2005 after a long decline. Fishing participation is a measure of the percentage of Minnesotans who fish, not the total number of licenses sold.
"I haven't looked at the 2008 numbers, but we had upticks in 2005, 2006 and 2007 in which license sales kept pace with population growth, which is the first time in a while that has happened," Kelly said. "On the basis of million license sales, it's about 2 percent, which is not much, but at least it's not going down."
Kelly said the slight upswell in anglers doesn't appear to be coming from those ages 16 to 44. Minnesotans participating in fishing in that age category dropped 10 percent from 2000 to 2007. About 1 percent of that decline has occurred since 2005.
Meanwhile, baby boomers, or those ages 45 to 63, haveincreased their participation in fishing in the past three years.
"If you look at young to middle- age Minnesotans, that age group is still going down. It's being balanced by the baby boomers, who are really hanging in there. They are keeping hunting and fishing numbers up," Kelly said.
It is difficult to make any conclusions about how this trend is playing out in the state's fishing industry, which has been buffeted by declining retail sales and store closings.
Mike Alwin owns Bob Mitchell's Fly Shop in Lake Elmo and is one of two independently owned fly-fishing specialty shops in the Twin Cities. He said his fly-fishing classes have been full in recent years and he has been able to attract anglers of all ages.
"We used to have seven fly shops (in the Twin Cities), and now we're down to two," he said. "But I'm still awfully busy, teaching classes and waiting on customers. I just had a 13-year-old kid sign up for a fly-tying class."
Josh Stevenson owns Blue Ribbon Bait in Oakdale, and he has seen a steady stream of customers coming into his store since the economy stalled. Patrons are not buying expensive rods, reels and electronics, but bait and small-ticket items.
"My business has been pretty stable, but I think it has to do with unemployment," he said. "When unemployment is up, we sell more bait. It's guys that are 25 or 30 who are on unemployment and theyare going out fishing for an afternoon."
He said his business has likely benefited from the recent closing of a nearby Sportsman's Warehouse, a big-box outdoors retailer in Woodbury. Another Sportsman's Warehouse also closed recently in Coon Rapids.
The DNR is sending 90,000 postcards this spring to Minnesotans whose fishing licenses have lapsed. It is the third consecutive year the agency has tried to reach anglers who have fished in the past but haven't purchased a license. The program appears to be successful in getting anglers to buy new licenses, Bylander said.
The agency also is beefing up its MinnAqua program, which teaches kids about fishing. The program will be at more state parks this summer, Bylander said, and the agency is sponsoring a youth- fishing event at the Governor's Fishing Opener on White Bear Lake on May 9.
Still, there is reason to be concerned about the lack of interest in Minnesotans, ages 16 to 44, who are not fishing as much as the generation of 30 years ago, Kelly said.
The stable fishing-participation rate probably isn't sustainable, Kelly said, as baby boomers get older.
"Eventually, the baby boomers are going to quit and they'll start dropping off," he said. "That's what concerns us."
