Hunting and Fishing Up Across the Country

Since 1991 there has been a decline in people heading outdoors hunting and fishing all across the country. The recession had a major impact in the decline but old-fashioned pastimes had been giving way to other activities such as kid’s sports teams and computer games. For the past three years there has be an increase in licenses for hunting and fishing and this year is the best in a while. It seems to have a lot to do with the fact people are realizing doing things outdoors is healthy.

This year eleven per cent more Americas age 16 and older fished and nine percent more hunted as compared to last year. Kids are heading out too, with thirteen per cent more hunting and two per cent more fishing. In Maine there are approximately 220,000 anglers and 146,000 resident hunters which equals big bucks (no pun intended) for the state. Resident license holders spend $1.6 million dollars a day for an annual total of $581 million which has a definite impact of the state’s economy. Fishing in Maine brought in $300 million and placed Maine 39^th in the country, while hunting brought in $281 million and placed Maine 32^nd in the nation and that’s just residents.

The last several years with the decline in outdoorsman, the Fish and Wildlife Resource thought they were losing the youth of America to the computer generation, but the kids and adults are coming back. Fishing and hunting vary widely from state to state, the differences depending on state policies, economies, weather and other factors. The softening of hunting regulations by nearly three dozen states also helped the overall numbers.

All in all it still comes down to the economy, when times are tough people want to go back to basics and do what they did growing up.  Another factor is that people want to harvest their own food, and what better way than catching the big one.