Sales
of many – but not all – of Ohio’s various fishing licenses do
not appear to have been dampened by this spring’s generally cool,
excessively wet weather.
However,
these conditions do seem to have shot holes in the to-date sales of
one-day and seasonal shooting range permits, resident hunting license
sales, along with both non-resident and youth spring turkey-hunting
permits.
To-date
figures from February 22nd through May 7th - and supplied by the Ohio
Division of Wildlife via its computerized license-issuing system -
point to the issuance of 246,513 resident fishing licenses. That
figure is actually up from its corresponding 2018 time frame of
235,316 resident fishing license being issued, or an increase of 4.8
percent.
Noteworthy
also is that the additional resident fishing license sales added
another $201,546 to the agency’s Wildlife Fund.
An
8.7 percent jump was seen also in the to-date sale of three-day
fishing licenses along with a 9.3 percent rise in the number of
one-day non-resident fishing licenses.
On
the downturn were sales of one-day resident, one-day resident Lake
Erie charter fishing, and one-day non-resident Lake Erie charter
licenses. The latter two categories each saw sales drops of more
than 24 percent. The drops in these categories could be attributed to
the numerous storms that buffeted Lake Erie from late March through
press time.
Hit
too, were sales of seasonal non-resident fishing licenses, dropping
by 7.8 percent. Meanwhile, sales of the reduced cost (senior citizen)
annual fishing licenses were down only 1.2 percent.
The
net result is that Ohio actually issued more fishing licenses of all
kinds – 22 in number to be exact – from February 22nd to May 7th
than it did for the same period in 2018. The figure totaled 38,107
more fishing licenses and permits being issued for an additional
$626,143 going into the Wildlife Fund.
“The
fact that fishing license sales are up compared to last year’s is
promising and certainly better than being down,” said
Andy Burt,
the
Wildlife Division’s license
coordinator
for the Division of Wildlife.
“Sales
are also strong for our multiyear licenses, and the automatic renewal
of hunting and fishing licenses is now an option for those who
purchase at wildohio.gov. ”
However,
Burt
also says “as
we have seen in the last few weeks, spring weather is highly
variable.”
“So
sales typically do fluctuate widely until we get into mid-June when
weather and sales typically settle in,” Burt
said.
Hunting
license and permit sales were good too, though not with the dramatic
flare seen for their fishing license and tag counterparts. Here,
resident hunting license sales were down 6.5 percent and reduced cost
(senior citizen) hunting license sales were off 8.2 percent.
Also
dropping were sales of youth spring turkey permits – down 5.7
percent – and non-resident spring turkey permits – down 1.4
percent.
Taking
the biggest dive off the cliff were sales of shooting range permits,
the tags being required at several shooting ranges operated by the
Wildlife Division. To-date as noted during the measured period the
agency had sold 3,708 one-day range permits for a decline of 32
percent, and 2,967 annual range permits for a drop of 28.6 percent.
Lumping
the sales of range permits and “Wild Ohio” magazine
subscriptions, waterfowl habitat stamps, the Wildlife Division’s
hunting permit/license extensive stockpile numbers 70 items.
In
all, to date as of May 7th, the Wildlife Division had issued 516,215
hunting associated documents. That figure is up from the 482,533
documents the agency issued during the corresponding period in 2018.
For
accounting purposes, this increase has thus far added another
$659,787 to the Wildlife Fund.
- By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
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