No surprises here.
Not only did the number of fly fishermen increase in 2020, but the number of fly-fishing trips surged as well. OF and RBFF estimate that Americans went on 97 million fly fishing outings in 2020, up 27% from 2019 levels.
Who were all these Americans who went fly fishing in 2020? According to OF and RBFF, more than 1.4 million of them (18%) were people who picked up a fly rod for the first time.
LINK (via Fishing Tackle Retailer)
Quite the opposite here in Britain with numbers of flyfishers crashing fast. Even the same old – same old, usual suspect old boys who run the show have had to admit it to themselves recently. Major fly brand (No names – no packdrill, let’s just call it an American-based one – I own one of its original 1970s Hardy-made CFO III reels that’s fished Britain and travelled the world with me and caught umpteen thousands of trout and grayling) recently closed all of its regional stores in the UK … nobody less than 50 (and probably 70 to hmmm … maybe even 90 that one) seen flyfishing anywhere now … no salmon in the rivers, ailing sea-trout, often prohibitively expensive access to half-decent trout and grayling fishing … “Are they they having joke?”-priced fly rods, reels, waders and wading jackets etc…..
“Recipe for disaster in the making, chaps … there’s a once in a century storm coming in that will blow the lot of us away unless we can countenance change”, as I began telling the Official British Fishy Powers That Be and “Great and Good,” gently, not over-wordily (such sorts hate longer words, they confuse them) and very nicely, over here well over a quarter of a century ago now.
Outcome?
Messenger duly shot. Their own very well-shod, self-shot feet, I believe they can see, now, too.
As as some Irish will sometimes exclaim in the vernacular, “Feckin’ eejits!”.