5 Struggling Sports Desperate to Convince Kids They’re Cool – TIME
According to a 2014 report, there was a net loss of 1.2 million fishing participants in the previous year: Overall, 9.9 million people gave up fishing, while only 8.7 participants picked up the sport, representing a decrease of 21%. The poll shows that households with kids are more likely to fish: 17.5%, versus 12% of households without young children. But teenagers are the group least likely to be interested in fishing: Only 6.6% of people ages 13 to 17 who don’t fish said they were considering taking up the sport, compared to 43% of those 45 or over.
Unsurprisingly, the outdoors seems to be deemed less cool the older a child gets. Among kids ages 6 to 12, 44% say outdoor recreation is “cool,” compared to 34% of 13- to 17-year-olds. Nearly half (47%) of first-time adult fishing participants said they perceived the sport as “exciting,” but significant numbers also described the sport as “time consuming” (25%), uninteresting (16.5%), and “not for someone like me” (12%). The poll doesn’t reveal such perceptions with regard to children or teenagers specifically, but presumably an above-average portion of easily distracted, smartphone-addicted teens think fishing is too boring.
The insights of an outdoors recreation analyst quoted in 2007—when a study showed the number of fishing participants had dropped 16% over the previous 10 years—seems to hold up well: “Thirty years ago, people would get up and go fishing,” he said. “Now you get up and you have a soccer game at 9, a baseball game at 11, a team picnic at 1 — it’s much more structured time. Video games also are part of it.”
It’s understandable why the fishing industry is so eager to encourage kids to give the sport a try: 84% of adult participants say they were introduced to fishing by the time they turned 12. Of course, it helps if you actually catch a fish: 40% of men said the most enjoyable thing about fishing was (what else?) catching a fish, and 37% said the worse thing about fishing was (what else?) not catching a fish. Yet 19% of survey participants who fish said they caught nothing on their most recent fishing trip.
National Fishing & Boating Week, held the first week of June each year (June 6-14 in 2015), provides families a good excuse to give fishing a try. On one or more days during this week, most states allow fishing on public bodies of water without the requirement (or fee) of a permit.