2025 RBFF Report: Fly fishing holding steady

Yesterday the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation - along with the Outdoor Foundation - released its annual survey of fishing participation in the United States. The report comes out each year just prior to ICAST, the world's largest fishing trade show.  

The 2025 Special Report on Fishing details participation trends in overall fishing, saltwater fishing, fly fishing and other areas of our sport based on licenses, surveys, tackle sales and many other metrics from the previous year (in this case, 2024).  The survey counts anyone ages 6 and over who fished at least one time during the calendar year. 

Overall trend. Participation continues to grow with 57.9 million anglers, up from 57.7 in 2023, and 54.5 million in 2022. The participation rate remains at 19 percent, an all-time high. However, the number of anglers who fished more than 11 times per year (considered frequent anglers) continued to decline - down to 32 percent from 37 percent a decade ago.

Youth participation ages 6 to 12 grew slightly, while ages 13 to 17 declined slightly. Among minorities, black participation reached an all-time high at 5.5 million. Hispanic participation continues to break new records, having increased from 3.3 million in 2014 to 6.6 million in 2024. Women also reached an all-time high with 21.3 million, and represented 39 percent of first-time anglers - also a record.

Fly Fishing.  Our sport remained steady with 8 million participants in 2024. This was only the second time in 14 years that fly fishing numbers did not grow. In fact, there was little change in any numbers over 2023. The percentage of male to female fly anglers remains at 69/31, and the percentage of Hispanic flyfishers grew just 1 percent, while Black and Asian participation remained at 12% and 4%, respectively.

Historically, fly fishing has the highest income and highest education levels, and again, there was basically no change from 2023. Nearly 35% of longrodders have income of $100k or more, and 53% have some college or college degree. The youth movement continues however, as the largest age demographic - ages 25 to 34 - grew slightly. While age groups 55-64 and 65+ declined slightly.

Since revamping the regional participation metric (fewer regions), it's been difficult to do historical comparisons here. However, it does appear, from rough analysis, that the South region continues to grow, while the Northeast region continues to decline. The South region - Maryland to Texas - accounted for 39 percent of all fly anglers, and 52 percent of all saltwater fly anglers.

New book features Louisiana fly tiers

The Fly Tying Group (FTG) of Fly Fishers International (FFI) has published a new book, "Fly Tying for All Fish All Waters".  This hardcover book features over 100 patterns, including tips on tying, historical info, and more from some of the biggest names currently in fly tying, including Charlie Craven, Mike Stewart, Tim Flagler, Davy Wotton, Skip Morris, Patti Lueken, Tom Rosenbauer, Gretchen and Al Beatty, to name a few.

Most of the contributions to the book came from featured tiers at the FTG's show in Dallas, TX, in September of last year. The photos of selected patterns are of high quality, and each has a story behind it, written by the tier, which gives the reader insight to the origin of the fly, and it's most effective use. 

Included in the list of contributors are several names familiar to Louisiana fly tiers. Realistic tying guru Fred Hannie of Lake Charles is an FFI Buz Buzsek Award honoree - the highest honor in the world of fly tying. In addition to his featured patterns, his artwork graces the cover of the book. Other Bayou State tiers who are featured include Kenneth Breaux, Ron Braud, and Catch Cormier. Tiers  with Lousiana connections include Mike Hawkins and Fred Dupre. There are also many other tiers well known to our state's tying community.

"Fly Tying for All Fish All Waters" is currently shipping. Cost is $75. For more details, or to purchase, click here .