COVID-Recruited Anglers: How Can We Keep Them Fishing?

Fishy Fridays

Weekly spotlight on fisheries science journal articles

 

Jeff Kopaska
AFS Executive Director
jkopaska@fisheries.org

Some of you know that I spent many years digging into angler demographics and fishing license sales data.  So, it probably comes as no surprise that when I saw a paper on the topic, it piqued my interest. Today’s paper is from NAJFM, and looks at fishing license sales, motivations to fish, and subsequent angler retention during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.  The really interesting thing to me is that there are documented differences between “avid” anglers (those who purchase on a nearly annual basis), and many of the casual anglers who purchased licenses during the pandemic.  However, there are also many similarities between all these anglers.  Read on and enjoy. 

https://doi.org/10.1002/nafm.11059