Survey looks at why anglers stopped fishing for trout in Wisconsin

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Petchenik worked with DNR's licensing staff to run a query of the automated licensing system to see how many people bought a trout stamp for every year 2004-2008 but stopped buying the stamp after 2008. That total was 2, 268. Those people received a letter to verify their address was still current. The survey design called for 800 of them to get a survey in the mail to fill out and return. The surveys were mailed out the second week of October.

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_artic...up.asp?id=1947

[FishnDave]

That should be an interesting survey. Hmmmm....didn't the Wii game console come out in 2008-2009?

[Silver Creek]

Petchenik worked with DNR's licensing staff to run a query of the automated licensing system to see how many people bought a trout stamp for every year 2004-2008 but stopped buying the stamp after 2008. That total was 2, 268. Those people received a letter to verify their address was still current. The survey design called for 800 of them to get a survey in the mail to fill out and return. The surveys were mailed out the second week of October.

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_artic...up.asp?id=1947

The information given by the DNR is more complicated than they present, and the information is misleading overall. Lets examine that actual raw data rather than what is presented in that article.

You would believe from the article, that the number of trout stamps has been decreasing; but that is not true. Trout stamp sales actually increased from 2004 to 2008 and 2009 is even higher. So it is obvious that while some folks have stopped buying trout stamps, even more new anglers are buying trout stamps.

If they are doing that survey to see why anglers are quiting, I would suggest that they ask the new anglers why they started. Maybe by doing that, we can get even more new trout anglers.

"The number of trout stamps sold in 2008 increased 5 percent over 2007, and 2009 sales increased 7 percent over 2008."

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_artic...up.asp?id=1895

If you look at the PDF below, the number of trout stamps sold in 2008 was 136,836 and grew to 146,803 in 2009, a gain of 10,000 trout stamps. And trout anglers increased from 191,995 to 197,555. There was a decrease in both trout stamps sold and trout anglers from 2004 at 137,828 sold stamps and 212,414 anglers vs 2006 at 129,194 stamps sold and 189,168 anglers respectively.

However, the trout stamp fee increased from $7.25 to $10 in 2006, an increase of about 40%. Could the fee increase be a cause? The survey says...........

"The cost of the trout stamp has increased from $2.50 during 1978-1983, to $3.25 during 1984- 1991, to $7.25 during 1992-2006, and currently is $10.00 (since 2006)."

"The number of trout stamps sold varies from year-to-year and averages about 142,000 stamps annually over the last 10 years. In 2008 sales increased by 5% over 2007 and in 2009 sales increased 7% over 2008."

http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/pubs/troutstamp0810.pdf

So is the glass half full or half empty?

It reminds me of a true story told to me by my late best friend, Jim Greenlee, the former owner of Weinbrenner Shoe Company. Jim was the former VP to the Chariman of Bata, founded in 1894 which became the the largest international shoe company by 1931.

Early on, the Bata sent two employees to South America to see if there was a potential market. There reported independently to the Chairman. One came back and said that there was no market for shoes because no one wore shoes in South America. The other said that the market potential was great because no one wore shoes! Bata opened stores in Brazil and soon captured the South American Market.

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change is coming.
All DNR staff I have talked to say the same thing.
ALL anglers are being asked for input.

Some of it will not be liked......

Lisa Gaumnitz
DNR Public Affairs Manager, Water Division
(60 264-8942
lisa.gaumnitz@wisconsin.gov
101 S. Webster St.
Box 7921
Madison, WI 53707

Gaumnitz, Lisa L - DNR to me

show details 10:57 PM (13 hours ago)

I'm hoping this year. Karl Scheidegger, an FH biologist and their outreach guy, this year takes over from Larry Claggett. He asked for comments from DNR folks earlier this year, and my big advice was to ease into the regs. Right now, page 3 is a wall of text and even I don't want to read it. Hopefully, he can break it down a little so the regs are a little more approachable.

Someone is also supposed to be updating the maps in some way to make those more useable

If you have specific suggestions, please feel free to pass them on to me and I'll forward them to Karl and to the other gentleman working on the maps. His name escapes me now, but I'll remember it later..

[FishnDave]

Since they are asking for input, and want to know what anglers want...just tell them you want MORE fish and BIGGER fish that are EASY to catch and FIGHT real hard on waters than only YOU have access to. Is that asking too much? ;o)

OK, maybe ask for access to MORE waters.

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I believe saying ONLY 2, 268 anglers leaving trout fishing during that time period of STAUNCH trout anglers is minimizing.
It is a BIG deal in my book.

[Silver Creek]

Gross numbers are misleading unless you have the population from which they are taken.

2,268 anglers left but 2,268 out of what? Out of 136,836 in 2008. This is 1.6% of the 2008 stamp buyers. Then 10,000 new stamps or 4 times as many that were lost in 4 years were gained in a single year from 2008 to 2009.

So if 2,268 lost over 4 years is a big deal the gain of 10,000 gained in a year should be very big deal.

I'm not against doing the survey.

What I am against is the slanting of statistics to make it seem as if the sky is falling when in reality, the data tells a totally different story.

This sometimes happens when a researcher massages the data to add importance to their project. It seems more important to say that 2,268 anglers left rather than to say that 1.6% faithful anglers left over a 4 year period. And that statement seems more important than to say that than .4% (less than 1/200) leave per year. They all are true but they convey a different sense of urgency.

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It must be a serious concern or Wisconsin who is about as cheap as it comes is sending out surveys.

All groups are being asked for their input. It hasn't happened in 20 years and the results will be eye opening.

will come back to this when the survey is over and the data is tallied up.

[Silver Creek]

It must be a serious concern or Wisconsin who is about as cheap as it comes is sending out surveys.

All groups are being asked for their input. It hasn't happened in 20 years and the results will be eye opening.


will come back to this when the survey is over and the data is tallied up.

Lets examine the article you referenced to see if you are correct.

"The Department of Natural Resources mailed out surveys earlier this month to more than 800 randomly picked fishing license holders who had once been trout anglers but who had not bought a trout stamp that would allow them to fish for trout in Wisconsin's inland waters since 2008."

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_artic...up.asp?id=1947

With all due respect, all groups are NOT being asked for their input. It is a limited survey of 800 fishers compared to a total of 136,836 stamp buyers in 2008. And it is limited to those who did not buy stamps, so NONE of the 136,836 who DID buy licenses are being asked their opinion.

That is exactly the point I made in my first reply. They are not asking any of the new anglers or older anglers that have repurchased stamps why they bought stamps. So since they are ignoring over 136,000 anglers how can you say all groups are being surveyed?

I estimate the cost of 800 surveys at about $2.00 a survey for printing, mailing, and data logging is less that $2000.00 not counting the researchers time for analysis. If the survey can be read by an OCR, it is even cheaper. It is pretty cheap anyway. So big bucks are not being spent in my view. They are surveying about 1/3 of their data set of 2,268, and they will be lucky to get a return of 1/3 of the surveys or 10% of their total data set. Is 10% an adequate sample? I look forward to their statistical analysis as to the confidence level of their data.

There is almost always a form of sample bias as to who returns a voluntary survey. Usually those who have a complaint will return voluntary surveys so the return sample will probably be biased toward those who will have negative reasons why they stopped fishing. That's the way it goes.

Don't look at the statistical results of the surveys alone. Examine whether they did a probability analysis of their results to see how likely the results are to actually represent the views of their target group. So we look first at the validity of their results BEFORE we look at the results. I truly hope it is not a case of GIGO.

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WDNR of the state of Wisconsin with many well trained biologists and scientists think that this survey is a worthy effort.
I believe I will error on the side of people with YEARS of experience.

This people leaving trout fishing in Wisconsin is an EPIDEMIC and needs attention and not be swept under the rug.