(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.
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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