Seemingly random tackle shortages are proving perplexing to understand

Anglers on the hunt for fishing supplies are often enough encountering tales of how they should have been at the bait shop last week.

Or perhaps since the start of COVID-19 pandemic last winter.

On more a few occasions devoted anglers such as Bob Ashley of Mentor have run into difficulty finding tackle supplies.

So too have angling writers like Darl Black of Pennsylvania.

It’s the “why” that is hard to reel in, though.

A spokesperson with the American Sportsfishing Association – the trade group which largely represents the fishing tackle industry – crows that it’s all because many more people are fishing this year than even last.

However, when asked for clarification, expansion and verification, the ASA did not responded to other requests for additional comment.

Ditto with one of the nation’s leading on-line and brick-and-mortar outdoors suppliers.

On the reverse side there is speculation that the lack - at a minimum, sparse - assembly of fishing tackle in stores and on-line is directly due to COVID-19’s rise in China where a lot of fishing tackle or components are made. With that country shut down for two to three months this winter, the fishing tackle supply chain was severed.

And perhaps complicating matters further, the on-going trade tiff between the U.S. and China may be contributing to the shortages, though (again) the ASA has not been forthcoming to further request for comments.

For full disclosure, I recently experienced difficulties in obtaining some pieces of fishing gear, recently being unable to locate even the basic components associated with bass-angling’s latest “new” thing, the Ned rig. And that challenge was in bass-fishing’s Nirvana of central Florida.

Mary Jane Williamson, spokeswoman for ASA, said that while “it’s true that tackle inventory is going down just when recreational fishing is going up,” she adds that “the story’s may not be so much about inventory as (being) the problem.”

Rather, Williamson says “people of all ages are getting into recreational fishing in numbers we haven’t seen in a very long time.”

“Interest in all outdoor activity is on the rise as people take to the outdoors for safe(er) activities,” Williamson said.

A rise, perhaps, yet hardly a rapid acceleration that would better and more fully explain empty tackle shelves and thin displays or rods and reels – something which Ashley said he’s taken note of with the several fishing stores he frequents.

To illustrate this point - at least for Ohio - a look at the fishing license distribution through July 19, 2019 and compared to this year for the same time frame might be illuminating. The data supplied by the Ohio Division of Wildlife shows that 746,806 documents of all kinds have thus far been issued. Through July 19, 2019 that figure was 726,931 documents – or just a three-percent increase this year.

Small yer-to-year to-date gains were seen in Ohio resident licenses, one-day Ohio resident adult license, and Ohio senior licenses.

Down were everything else. Among them being non-resident licenses (off six percent), three-day licenses (off 35 percent), and Lake Erie non-resident permits (off 61 percent).

So the answer to the “why” remains itself unanswered. Which means some finger pointing at China may prove justified.

“Yes, every tackle shop I talk with say nothing is being shipped in terms of tackle,” said Black. “They are basically interested in terminal tackle, and right now they have nothing on the shelves; (the) last shipments were pre-COVID-19.”

Black says these owners further note that “their distributors say everything is slow in shipping due to previous shutdowns.”

“While no one wants to say it, I don’t think tackle is coming in from China where a lot of the terminal tackle originates. I don’t know what Trump has blocked to hurt the Chinese, but I suspect China just isn’t shipping to the U.S. in retaliation.”

Black did say that while even some stocks of popular brands of monofilament fishing line are in short supply at any number of locations, other brands that are made in whole or in part in the U.S. appear to have no inventory issues, Black says.

“On the positive side, Gamma Line is available (made in Japan and processed in US); Dale is not having a problem shipping to meet orders,” Black says.

And Black added, too, that while he’s not visited a big tackle retailer since the onset of COVID-19, he has scoured the Internet to replace a fishing rod his wife Marilyn broke in June.

“(But it) seems very few rods are available – and most rods are from China or Southeast Asia, with exception of certain higher price brands made in the U.S.,” Black says.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com