Pummeled by the unusually sustained cold weather, sales of
Ohio fishing license have largely stalled.
Largely, though entirely, says the to-date statistics
related to sales of the state’s various fishing and hunting licenses.
Provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Ohio
Division of Wildlife the data reveals that the issuance of resident annual Ohio
fishing is off 15 percent. In raw numbers this translates into 126,439 such
documents being issued to-date this year compared to 148,785 resident adult
licenses sold during the same period in 2013.
In all last year the Wildlife Division sold 653,798 resident
adult annual fishing licenses. Such licenses represent the fiscal backbone of
the Wildlife Division’s fisheries-related economic tally.
Down also are sales of non-resident adult annual fishing
licenses, as well. The to-date figures for this important category are 6,805 so
far for this year and 7,502 for the same period in 2013. Last year the Wildlife
Division sold 32,914 non-resident adult annual fishing licenses.
However, two categories of fishing license sales are
actually up; and the suspect for causing the increase is the weather, says Tom
Rowan, a Wildlife Division’s assistant chief.
Increased sales are being noted in the categories of both one-day
fishing licenses and three-day non-resident fishing licenses.
Data supplied by the Wildlife Division show that so far this
year the agency has issued 1,673 three-day fishing permits compared to the 2013
same to-date tally of 25,360 three-day licenses for a 27-percent gain. In 2013
the agency sold 25,360 three-day fishing licenses.
Again was noted also for sales of one-day licenses to
non-resident adults. The current 2014 to-date figure for this category stands
at 2,254 one-day tags end compared to the 2013 to-date sale of 1,756 such
documents. That increase totals 28.36 percent.
In 2013 the Wildlife Division sold 28,487 one-day
non-resident fishing licenses.
“I believe what happened is that a lot of anglers saw and
took the opportunity to go ice fishing in the Western Basin,” Rowan said. “Guides
up there said the season was one of the best they saw in a long time. People
took advantage of that good fishing and it’s reflected in the sales of
three-day fishing licenses and one-day non-resident fishing licenses.”
Rowan said that overall fishing sales are off, though such
shifts are hardly unusual. The same situation was seen early on 2012 when cold
and wet weather struck early also, Rowan said.
“Sales boomed last year this time because we had a mild
spring,” Rowan said. “We always see license sale increases when the weather is
nice.”
Like the sale of Ohio fishing licenses their respective
hunting brethren tags also have slid, though hardly enough to elicit a yawn by
the Wildlife Division’s bean counters.
The to-date sale of 2014 general resident adult hunting
license figure is off less than 8 percent while sales of spring turkey tags is
down slight at 5.5 percent.
Neither drop is even worthy of the smallest of worries,
including those for spring turkey permits, says Rowan.
“It’s just like what we see for the deer season; a lot of
turkey hunters wait until just before the season starts,” Rowan said.
And that season begins Monday, April 21 with this Easter weekend
dedicated to youth only.
Perhaps another area where the on-going wintry weather has
impacted sales involves the one-day and seasonal shooting range permits. The
first category is down 23.48 percent while the second category is down 12.45
percent.
The Wildlife Division operates five Class “A” supervised rifle
and pistol shooting ranges around the state that each require a participant to
first purchase either an one-day or else a seasonal permit.
“You can never predict what’s going to happen with license
and permit sales because of factors like the weather,” Rowan also said. “But
our sales have been steadier than those seen in other states. We take these ups
and downs into account when we work up our budget.”
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
No comments:
Post a Comment