One of the hottest topics in the fly fishing world over the past
several years has been the perceived growth of the interest of
women in fly fishing. In fact, one of the few growth areas in
fishing and the shooting sports over the past decade has been
the number of women entering the sports. Once upon a time, women
were almost non-existent on the demographic charts of outdoor
marketing experts. But over the past several years, women have
become a significant demographic. And more and more manufacturers,
retailers, adventure travel agencies, and outfitters are beginning
to reach out to women shooters, hunters, and anglers. My own
personal experience and analysis told me that the spike in female
participation and interest was most evident in two arenas:
competitive shooting and all kinds of fishing.
I remember the days not so long ago when a female professional
tournament angler was met with patronizing almost freak show
reactions from the industry. Today, there are scores of them,
and you see women competitors in almost every tournament. I
recall the days when the local clay shooting club’s only woman
was working at the snack bar. Today, the owner is a woman and
about one out of four shooters are also ladies. The vast majority
of this growing group of outdoor women consists of baby boomers
who have raised their children, maybe their grandchildren, and
are now expanding their hobbies to take up their new-found spare
time and disposable income.
But there are facts and there are myths — anecdotal information
and documented statistical trends. So when my wife, the lovely
and talented Wilma, decided to take up fly fishing and I decided
to write about it, I realized I needed to educate myself to what
was really going on with women in fly fishing. I needed to improve
the resolution of my big-picture view of the subject. So I went to
authoritative sources of marketing data and government demographics
for the answers.* Here’s what I discovered:
1.Indeed, more American women are fly fishing nowadays than in
the past. But there seems to have been a peak a few years ago,
and over half of those women who gave fly fishing a try between
2002 and 2004 have now given it up. I think it’s too early to
pronounce final judgment on this recent decline, but the evidence
of this trend from multiple sources is compelling. Other forms of
fishing seem to not be suffering from similar attrition over the
past few years.2.About 3% of American women fly fish, and that is about 1/4 of
all fly anglers. That is a substantial increase over past decades.
The increase began in the mid to late 1990s.
As a whole, fly fishing retail spending is increasing by an
unimpressive 3-4% per year over the past decade, but the overall
percentage of Americans who fly fish is dropping at about the
same rate. So fly anglers are spending more per capita on their
fly fishing endeavors, but there are fewer and fewer of us. This
is true of all demographic groups. And very few Americans under
the age of twenty five are entering the sport. Among the young,
fly fishing is actually shrinking in popularity at an alarming
rate. But so are all other outdoor activities, especially all
other forms of hunting, shooting, and fishing. Outdoor sports
and recreation to today’s American youth means skateboarding,
snowboarding, hiking, bicycling, and camping. And only a small
minority is interested in THOSE activities.The big box retail distribution model continues to gain ground
as small retailers continue to go out of business from coast to
coast. Name brand loyalty is very strong among baby boomers who
make up the overwhelming majority of consumers of fly fishing
products and services. And long-distance adventure travel is
grabbing a higher share of the recreation market. More people
are traveling further to fly fish, and they are spending
considerably more money per trip to do it. BUT…they are taking
fewer and fewer trips per year. In fact, over the past fifteen
years, the average number of fishing outings per year among fly
anglers has dropped by almost forty percent…from more than a
dozen to about eight. And this comes as the bulk of the baby
boomer generation formally retires…presumably just when they
are experiencing massive gains in free time for recreational
activities.What’s replacing all this lost time to outdoor recreation?
INDOOR recreation: yoga, aerobics, dance, Pilates, and working
out at the gym in front of a TV monitor with headphones on are
the clear winners in the active lifestyle sector. Other indoor
pursuits such as scrapbooking, computer recreation, electronic
gaming, and various forms of crafts are also claiming large
chunks of all this new free time. Humorously, when you SURVEY
Americans these days, they overwhelmingly list “outdoor activities”
among their top interests. But when they report how much of what
they are doing to the Census Bureau or when you examine receipts
for sales of hunting and fishing licenses, sporting goods sales,
and so forth; you find that there is a fundamental disconnect
between what they say they are interested in and what they are
spending their money on. I suspect it is “fashionable” to SAY
you love the outdoors. But when it comes to actually DOING outdoor
activities, the interest level drops drastically. I’m reminded of
the story about the pig and the chicken who wanted to give the
farmer something nice for his birthday. The chicken suggested a
ham and egg breakfast. The pig pointed out that while this is a
minor sacrifice for the chicken, it would require a much higher
commitment level for the pig! I think that’s where the disconnect
lies between saying and doing when it comes to outdoor recreation
in today’s American population. I hear a lot of my fly fishing
buddies complain about how much easier it is to find someone to
talk about fishing than it is to find someone to actually go
fishing with.
So this is the backdrop against which all of my columns about the
lovely and talented Wilma’s foray into fly fishing are set. By the
way, she will be hereafter referred to by the acronym LTW because
it is a lot of work to type “the lovely and talented Wilma”
over and over again, and because I think it’s marginally humorous
and profoundly true. And these columns will be titled “Fishing with
LTW” followed by a series number (Part I, Part II, etc.) We undertook
arranging her training and her outfitting simultaneously. And that
will be the next topic of discussion. ~ Ken
* The sources used to compile this summary were the Survey:
The Fly Fishing Market in the US (2000), LeisureTRAK (2005) from
Leisure Trends Group, and the 2006 Outdoor Recreation Participation
Study done by the Outdoor Industry Foundation; and numbers were
checked against statistics from the US Census Bureau using the
2000 and 2004 Censuses and from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
About Ken:
Ken graduated from Southern Methodist University
in 1988, and spent the next several years serving
in the United States Navy as an intelligence analyst
and Russian Language translator. He is a veteran
of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Leaving the
nation’s service in 1993.
Ken is also a published outdoor writer and historian,
having penned articles and stories that have appeared
in several national hunting publications like North
American Hunter magazine, on GunMuse.com, in regional
and local newspapers, and historical and literary
journals. He has also provided hunting and dog
training seminars for Bass Pro Shops and other
sporting goods retailers nationwide. He volunteers
his time to Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited,
as well as several local charitable organizations.
He is also a REALTOR with Coldwell Banker in
Springfield, Missouri; where he lives with his wife,
Wilma, and their Weimaraner, Smoky Joe.
Originally published July 23rd, 2007 on Fly Anglers Online by Ken Morrow.