Fly fishing continues to grow

It's been nearly two decades since "A River Runs Through It" raised a huge awareness in fly fishing.

This interest does not appear to have waned much either. Sales of fly fishing gear continued to show impressive gains with 59.3 percent of anglers reporting they bought fly fishing tackle in 2010, reports Southwick Associates.

This figure also represents an increase of 4.1 percent over 2009.

These findings, along with detailed information on the most purchased fly fishing brands, type of specific fly fishing gear bought, types of fish sought and fly angler demographics, are all reported on in Southwick Associates first-ever comprehensive Fly Fishing Market Survey.

Additional key findings of the 2010 Fly Fishing Market Survey: flies were the most purchased type of fly fishing gear accounting for 60.9 percent of fly tackle transactions, Temple Fork Outfitters was the most purchased fly rod (15.4 percent of purchases), Orvis was the most purchased reel (23.5 percent) and trout remains king, sought by 66.3 percent of dedicated fly fisherman.

“The data we are able to collect specific to fly fishing each year continues to grow as part of our overall efforts to measure angler habits and purchases,” says Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates, which designs and conducts the surveys at HunterSurvey.com and AnglerSurvey.com.

“Given the increased interest in fly fishing and the types of information we have collected, it was time to release a more comprehensive report dedicated to the sport."

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com