k-bob wrote:
not a lot of people in a 315 million population country. 1/2 of 1%.
It''s more than you think though. Out of those 315mil you have to consider that young children prob won't be counted as fly fisherman, along with a sizable chunk of old folks who are no longer physically able to fish.
You are pretty much left with men between 18 and 75 years old being your fly fisherman in the US.
Finally, take away the people from urban areas or geographical areas that have no trout (or other popular fly rod fish). What you end up with is that in areas with opportunities to fish for trout, you have a lot more fly fisherman than you think. Trying to compare the number of fly fisherman with the total number of Americans really doesn't work since that .5% is not distributed evenly over the entire population. If it were, you would expect to have Penns all to yourself on most days and there wouldn't be parades of drift boats on the Madison for 5 months of the year.
A good analogy would be surfers. If you broke it down, very few people surf. But, go to the beach and you will see plenty of surfers.
Not so much in Iowa.
With all that said, I am convinced that the fly fishing demographic has changed significantly over the last 15-20 years. I see a lot more younger guys on the water, particularly the guys in their 20's and 30's. That age group is also contributing greatly to the current trends in the sport. 65 year old anglers are not driving the trends in euro nymphing, or switch rods, or streamer fishing.
Since I'm already on a rant, I'd also like to point out which company's have come up with the low-end 1.5 million fly fisherman figure according to the article. These are all high end manufacturers and I have to wonder if their figures are based on the number of anglers who are actually potential customers of theirs or a total number of actual fly anglers. There are a lot of anglers who are never going to purchase a Simms, Orvis, or Sage product, or at least not on a regular basis. There are just too many decent lower cost options. Also, some people are gear junkies and buy tons of new stuff every year, and others hardly ever buy anything new. They still have their same 9' 5wt from 1995 and they are fine with it.
Finally, I also think the last paragraph of the article is just babble. His bold prediction is pretty much "High end manufacturers are going to make more high end stuff, but also make mid priced stuff, and use specific stuff." Well no crap, they've been doing that FOR THE LAST DECADE OR MORE. Thanks Mr. Deeter for tricking me into reading an article that lead absolutely nowhere.
