Each year in conjunction with ICAST, the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation releases it’s Special Report on Fishing. The report contains results from a comprehensive survey which targets angler participation in the previous year (i.e., the 2020 report covers 2019 participation) in the United States.
RBFF works with the Outdoor Foundation and a variety of market research and consulting firms in compiling the survey. The survey contains detailed information and trends on fishing participation by gender, age, ethnicity, geographic region and more. The report also breaks down the participation by types of fishing, including fly fishing.
Although this past week’s ICAST was online instead of in-person, the presentation remained part of the “State of the Industry” keynote address. Stephanie Vatalaro, Senior VP of Communications and Marketing for RBFF was delighted to share good news with her audience.
Overall, fishing participation was up once again with 3.1 million new anglers. This resulted in at least 50.1 million Americans ages 6 and up fishing at least once during the 2019 calendar year. This represents the highest number of anglers and the highest participation rate (17%) since 2007.
With regards to fly fishing, participation also increased for the tenth straight year. Nearly 1.2 million Americans joined the sport this past year. The 7.0 million fly anglers represents an all-time high in numbers, as well as an all-time high percent of fly fishers among all anglers (13.9%).
The biggest gains were among women, who now represent 30% of all fly anglers. For the second year in a row, the number of first-time female flyfishers outnumbered the first-time males, 22% to 16%. Also growing were the number of Hispanic fly anglers who now make up 12% of our sport.
Broken down by age groups, the highest number of flyflingers were ages 25-34 (19%), 35-44 (15%), and 45-54 (14%). The breakdown by income also continues to even out across all income brackets, further eroding the conception that this is a “rich man’s sport”.
What continues to stand out in the last several reports is the geographic distribution shift of fly anglers. While the Pacific states (WA, OR, CA) still remain strong at 17%, the South Atlantic (VA, NC, SC, GA, FL) now ranks first with 19%, followed by the mid-Atlantic (NY, PA, NJ, MD) with 17%, East North-Central (WI, MI, IL, IN, OH) with 13%, and West South Central (TX, LA, OK, AR) with 11%. This growing shift is one reason why FFI National is looking to move their annual Expo to other areas of the country.
More good news. Over half of the fly fishing participants described themselves as “avid”. This was the highest percentage of self-described avid participants out of the five different fishing categories.
And there’s even more good news. Glenn Hughes, president of the American Sportfishing Association, stated in his keynote speech that surveys indicate that so far in 2020, there have been nearly 8 million new participants to fishing overall. If we assume that 13 percent of these have taken up fly fishing, then the 2021 survey (2020 numbers) could see the biggest percentage increase since 1993, the year after “The Movie” came out.
