Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Ohio's to-date fishing license sales continue to be plagued by COVID-19


(This story may be revised and updated to include information on Ohio Division of Wildlife revenues as they relate to license sales)

Sales of Ohio various fishing licenses during the coronavirus (COVID-19)

pandemic are in need of their own ventilators.

Yet while the ale of most types of spring turkey tags also were down, an anomaly happened with the sale of those required of non-resident turkey hunters – and that took a considerable leap up.

The as-of April 13th issuance of all Ohio fishing licenses totaled 161,975 documents. This figure represents a 32-percent decline for the same 2019 to-date tally of 238,172 documents. 
Only the sales of three-year licenses demonstrated a sign of good health during the on-going COVID-19 crisis. Here, 16,708 three-year fishing licenses were sold as of April 13th compared to 6,497 such documents for the same 2019 to-date period. That is a two-and-one-half times bump.

However, says of the all-important resident fishing license have tumbled. As of April 13th, the Ohio Division of Wildlife had issued 129,667 of these licenses; a roughly 27 percent decline for the same to-date 2019 figure of 238,172 resident fishing licenses.

Ten-year license sales dropped also; 704 such documents to-date in 2019 to the 2020 to-date number of 482. This is a decline of roughly 29 percent.

Not unexpectedly the April 6th order by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to stop the sale of all fishing and hunting licenses to non-resident has seen an impact on fishing license sales. The change does, though, allow non-residents who have all ready purchased their documents to use them.

The to-date sale of non-resident licenses for 2020 stands at 5,620 documents, again noting that sales of such licenses were suspended as of April 6th.
Even so, the to-date sale of such tags going through April 13th, 2019 was 9,908 such documents. Thus, sales of these licenses fell by 42 percent.

Similar drops are being noted in one-day license sales: 2,153 such documents to-date this year verses 3,493 for the same period in 2019; and three-day licenses have shown do-date sales of 612 such documents this year, but 2,235 three-day tags for the same to-date period in 2019.

Also, one-day Lake Erie charter service license sales have an issuance of just 71 documents to-date this year but 335 such permits to-date for the same period last year. 
It is believed most of these short-term licenses are sold to non-resident anglers.

Meanwhile, sales of the various senior citizen licenses have also fallen. The three-year senior fishing licenses dropped 13 percent, while the five-year senior citizens license sales dropped 40 percent. 
Lifetime fishing to-date sales show a decline as well: from 585 such documents in 2019 to 348 this year; a drop of also 40 percent.

Regarding the sales of spring turkey hunting licenses, here and overall the numbers are down. To-date as of April 13th, 16,993 such documents were issued. This compares to 22,193 documents for the same period in 2019. That is a decline of about 25 percent.

Among the other declines were the sales of resident turkey tags; off about 24 percent, from 12,984 in 2019 to 12,183 to-date this year. Sales of senior turkey tags took an even much greater dip: from 1,724 to-date in 2019 to 830 this year. That is a drop of nearly 50 percent.

Sales of spring youth turkey tags dropped, and hugely so, too. To-date in 2019 the Wildlife Division had sold 5,673 of these permits. However, to-date this year that figure was 1,935 documents – a decline of 3,738 tags.

Thus, the Wildlife Division has issued only about 35 percent of the number of youth spring turkey tags when the 2020 to-date figures and compared to the 2019 figures.

On the reverse side, sales of spring turkey tags to non-residents took a jump. The to-date 2019 number was 945. This year – and again no more can be sold – was 1,315. That is a gain of 370 non-resident turkey tags; or roughly an increase of 39 percent. 
It might be suggested that non-residents bought their Ohio turkey tags as perhaps they saw the opportunity door was closing and hence, the spike in such sales.
 By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com 

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