The Biggest Threat To The Future Of Fishing In America.

Yes. And just so you know, when Luke and I started Salt Strong, our first goal was never to be a big apparel company. Ironically, we’re quickly turning into a decent size apparel company with the crazy momentum we have there, but the big goal of Salt Strong, and the underlying theme and mission will never change… and it hasn’t changed since day one. We’ve always said that our big mission is teaching the world how to fish. And that ties in with the big problem we will be discussing today.First, let’s talk about the short-term problems the fishing community is facing that Luke mentioned. And please know that I believe these are critical things, so don’t think that I am trying to say they are not important, because they are.

Short-term thank you. That’s a much better way to say it Luke.Now I know that if I took a microphone today and went to any boat show or a fishing even (like ICAST) where there’s going to be a lot of anglers, and I asked just ten random people or even a hundred people, “Tell me the number one threat to fishing today.”, I bet we hear things from like pollution. Especially with all of the uproar about this Lake Okeechobee thing. It’s a hot topic, and it should be. It’s a shame what’s happening there.

Once again, I’m not trying to say these issues are not important, because they are incredibly important issues that we should fight tooth and nail on.

However, issues like the Lake Okeechobee run-off are just short-term things.

I’m also sure that would hear some feedback about fishing limits, like limits on certain species (like the snapper limit), grouper, and all of that stuff that we see in these Facebook posts all of the time.

We’d probably hear about off-limit areas. Down in the Keys, there are areas (and there’s going to more throughout the Gulf and the Keys) that you just can’t fish at all for different reasons.

We’d probably hear feedback about over-fishing and commercial fishermen, and that is obviously an important thing. Luke, what else you’d think we’d hear?

You pretty much covered it. I would say that the biggest short-term threat (especially right now) just as far as looking at online forums & Facebook groups about fishing here in Florida is the Lake Okeechobee run-off. It’s a huge deal obviously, it is getting a ton of attention fortunately, and hopefully we’ll make it end sooner, than later.I would say that would be the top one now. And as you said before, over-fishing in some areas, over-regulation. Sometimes, there’s too much regulations, sometimes, too little, and that obviously fluctuates over time. Again, I think you covered the biggest hitters.

Of course if Alex Fogg, the lionfish killer had been one of the people we asked, he would say, “Lionfish would be the biggest threat.” Haha. Make sure to check out that podcast interview with Alex we did last week. The guy has literally killed over ten thousand lionfish. Pretty awesome.So now I want to put all of these threats to fishing in perspective…

I’m willing to bet that in five years from now, we won’t be talking about Lake Okeechobee. However, sadly, something with Big Sugar and nasty water will certainly happen again here in Florida. It is not the first time, and it won’t be the last…

And to show you evidence of why I believe the Okeechobee incident will quickly be forgotten in a few years, let’s talk briefly about an example that Luke and I were discussing this morning.

The BP oil spill.

Do you remember what year that happened? Luke and I thought it was ten years ago.
In reality, it was less than six years ago!

In fact, we’re about to hit the six-year anniversary as the spill took place in April of 2010. I mean it’s crazy this horrific spill happened that recently in the big scheme of things, yet we hardly hear any chatter about it today?

Like you, I remember the BP Oil spill pretty vividly. Luke and I had not started Salt Strong yet, but I mean, there was people in the Gulf that made a living off of fishing those waters, and that goes for restaurants, to bait shops, to captains and commercial guides.

And they thought their life was over… heck, we all thought that fishing the Gulf was over, that it would never be the same.

It was such a hot topic that it became one of the bigger global topics during that time.

So isn’t it a bit eye-opening that an incredibly serious threat to fishing that we all lived through was only five years ago, and yet, we don’t even talk about it anymore…

And it’s not to say that the BP Oil spill hasn’t impacted the fishing. But I think that if you ask most of the guides and stuff, they’d say, “It’s almost back to normal.”

With all the money that BP had to give the fishing industry (which I’m glad they had to pay up as the Gulf deserve every bit of it), some could argue it’s almost become better that it was with all of the new reefs and conservation money that the Gulf states have made

Yet, here we are five, six years later and no one’s even mentioning it, except for the people that are still getting cash from it to do good things for the environment.Now that we are all on the same page in terms of long-term vs short-term perspective, let’s take a step back and talk about what we consider the biggest long-term threat to fishing .

It’s a simple as this…

It’s not getting enough kids and enough families out fishing.

Let me explain a little bit more what I mean by that, and why this is so impactful.

Basically any short-term threat like all the negative impacts that we’ve talked about so far all revolve around money. From the BP Oil Spill to Big Sugar, it’s all about money. In particular, doing sloppy work that ends up killing marine life all because someone up at the top wants to make more money in a shorter amount of time.

You see, none of these are about wrong or right… And whether we want to admit it or not, I imagine that the people running the big sugar companies in Lake Okeechobee are probably not bad people.

Meaning, they’re not out there saying, “Oh yeah, we’re trying to kill fish.” They obviously trying to justify it by saying things like, “Just think about how many jobs and how many families they support with Big Sugar”…

Regardless, at the end of the day, the only reason these horrible events are even happening comes down to money.

Money can’t but happiness, but it sure can get some things done in Congress, with lobbyist, etc. Money equals power when it comes to big business.

Now I’m not trying to say that we all need to be money hungry, but money does a lot of things for the fishing industry.

Every time someone buys a fishing license, every time someone buys marine supplies like boat gas and tackle, all that money is helping out our industry. It gives us more power as an industry.

So how does that fit in with kids fishing?

Here is why I’m so scared and why I think the lack of kids fishing today is such a big threat.

This next generation, these young kids today, they’re not out fishing. In particular, they’re not fishing the way that we were.

Luke and I are in our mid-thirties, and when we were ten years old, fishing is all we did.

We were out on our lake every single week of the year. We grew up on this lake called Lake Link in Winter Haven, Florida. We were bass fishing at the time, and that’s what we did.

If you looked out on Lake Link (or the connecting lakes called Otis and Little Lake Otis) on any afternoon, not to mention the weekends, you’d see us out there. And it wasn’t just us! You’d see a bunch of other kids out there fishing as well.

We fished anywhere we could as kids. W fished from the shores many days because we didn’t have boats. Eventually we acquired little old cheap canoes, but we were out there fishing any way we could.

Fast forward 20-25 years…

If you look around that same lake today, you’ll rarely see any kids out there fishing. The entire shoreline is barren. I was actually just there not to long ago on a beautiful day outside, and there were no kids out there… they were inside, they were playing video games, they were doing other things.

Today, there are so many choices for kids to do inside with all the technology, that they’re not out fishing.

And with fewer kids fishing, that means fewer people spending money on tackle, fishing licenses, etc. You know, all of the money that ultimately give the fishing industry power and influence.

Here’s why this is such a big deal long-term for the fishing industry.

If we have less money going into this industry today, that means fewer jobs for the fishing industry, that means less influence, that means less money to hire lobbyists, and that mean fewer ways to defeat things like this big sugar.

And this problem COMPOUNDS as these young kids today grow older and become parents, because now you have fewer people buying boats, fewer families going out on the water to fish, and of course even fewer kids being taught how to fish in that next generation…

In other words, if there’s a generation gap in fishing, it’s not ever going to get better. The whole fishing industry will continue to shrink, and shrink, and shrink.

It also leaves the fishing industry even more susceptible to attacks from some of these groups that are out there trying to target and put down fishing like PETA.

At the end of the day, you have to have new anglers coming through the ranks for the fishing industry to grow and to evolve. And if there is a generation skip in terms of this young generation today not excited about fishing, the overall long-term future for fishing starts to look bleak…

Absolutely, and why would a mom or dad that never grew up fishing teach their kids how to fish?Fishing for the most part has been something that’s been passed down from generation to generation. Our great, great grandfather taught his son how to fish, he taught his sons how to fish, he taught his two sons how to fish, and then our dad taught his sons (us) how to fish.

In our family (like most) fishing has just naturally been passed down from generation to generation, and our best memories were out there fishing with our dad and our grandfather.
That’s one reason that Luke and I have been so adamant about our mission to teach the world how to fish. And as you can imagine if you made this this far, most of it starts with kids and the parents of today.

I did this recently and I encourage you to as well the next time you walk into a Bass Pro or Cabela’s…

I walked into the Bass Pro, and I tried to envision that I was just a single dad with two kids that I wanted to take fishing for the first time. Problem is I don’t have any idea where to start.

Imagine that your dad never taught you how to fish as a kid, so you are basically starting over fresh.

Well, here was my experience in Bass Pro… and for the record, I’m not picking on Bass Pro, this is going to be the same anywhere, unless you go into an Orvis or some very niche fishing shop… but with any of these big box fishing or outdoors stores, I imagine the scenario is pretty similar to mine…

Overall, I was in the Tampa Bass Pro for about an hour and a half with my two kids. I was walking around in the aisles, I was looking at stuff, I was picking up stuff, and not a single employee, not a single person there even offered to come help me out, or ask questions, et cetera. How does that incentivize me? How does that help me get my kids out there and catch fish?

And there is just so much stuff there, I wouldn’t know where to begin if I were a single dad and it was my first time trying to teach my kids fishing.

That’s why were so adamant about doing everything we can to get both kids and their parents out there excited about fishing, because I’m telling you, if there is a big generation gap in the youngest generation not growing up fishing, it is going to be devastating to the future of fishing.

All this other short-term stuff we mentioned, is not going to matter because we won’t have the money to fight it!

I really want to reiterate how important that is, and how important the fishing licenses are. We just did a blog on fishing licenses as the FWC, and we’re talking tens of millions of dollars every year just on the fishing licenses here just in the State of Florida. Not to mention all of the tackle, boats, kayaks, launching fees, etc. that come from the anglers that buy fishing licenses.

Yep. It creates jobs for the mom and pop tackle stores, the lure manufatrures, the guy making kayaks and boats by hands, and millions of other people in America.And if there is less people fishing, that money and those jobs slowly start disappearing…

Let’s just say for the sake of argument that we cut down the amount of people fishing by 20% because that next generation is a skip (which I think is very conservative if this next generation of kids isn’t fishing)

That means 20% of the mom and pop stores are going to have to close. That means a lot of these little marinas, the small lure makers, and the little boat ramps and stuff close..

And did you know that all those public boat ramps you see around America (fresh water and salt water) are all paid for by our fishing licenses. Could you imagine having at least 20% less boat access to your favorite places to fish? And trust me, there are groups out there like PETA, that would love to shut down every public boat ramp in America…

Sadly, more so than ever before, there are more people and more groups with lots of money that are against fishing.

A few of them would do anything in their power to shut down fishing altogether!

Hunting’s under the same kind of microscope, so this same message goes for hunting as well… If their dads and their granddads are out there teaching the next generation how to hunt, how to enjoy hunting, how to respect hunting, and to really enjoy the conservation of it all as well, then hunting has a bleak long-term outlook as well. And that means every battles just become that much tougher to win.

I hope all of this makes sense on what the big problem really is.

The fear is that there will be an ongoing domino effect that will almost impossible to reverse if this next generation isn’t fishing.

Not only does it mean less money and fewer anglers, it also means an INCREASE in young adults that will be AGAINST fishing.

Think about how your opinions on fishing would be drastically different if you never grew up fishing.

If you never had the experience of actually catching a fish, would you really respect fishing that much? I could see their point of view. If I never fished in my life, and the first video I ever saw was someone molesting a shark, or some of the dumb stuff that always seems to make the national and local news, I would probably think the same thing, “Oh, these guys are evil, there hurting animals.”

It’s easy for someone to see that side of it if they’ve never experienced what fishing is really all about, how important the experience is, and what it does to a family. It’s brought our family together, and that is the fear that if we skip a generation, all that stuff is going to slowly dwindle, and the whole industry just loses more and more power.

Agree. The other thing that I want to bring up is the belittling, the cutting down of other anglers, and just the cursing and stuff that’s out there online in fishing groups and forums.It’s the stuff that I’m sure most of these anglers would never say to someone’s face, but all of a sudden they’re behind a computer, and they’re on a Facebook group, or they’re on a forum, and they just want to sit there and belittle people, and be mister know-it-all. But what they probably don’t know is that negative comments and the ridiculous fighting online actually really hurts fishing.

Think about this angler…

A first time person out there goes fishing and they catch their first fish! Perhaps they don’t really know what it is, or maybe they just have a question about a certain knot, or perhaps it’s a question like “Hey, do I even need a leader here?” (things that we call had to learn at some point), so they pose a legit question in an online group or forum…

And then all of a sudden they are bombarded with smart-a$$ comments from all of the jack-wagons out there, just belittling and saying things like, “If you don’t know what that is, you have no business even fishing.”

We all had to start at the bottom. We all had to ask that question to our dad, or to our grandfather, our grandmother, or mom, etc… “Hey, mom, dad, what kind of fish is this?”

Someone taught us at some point.

You’re not born knowing every single fish in the sea or lake, and you aren’t born knowing how to tie every knot. I think we all need to remember to watch our mouths, and watch what we say to people, because it could end up discouraging someone from ever fishing again. I mean that’s obnoxious, right?

Completely! And it’s shocking how often that happens, where just the most basic of all teachings as far as growing up, “If you don’t have something nice to say, just don’t say it.”People completely forget about that when they happen to be behind the keyboard. To be negative, and to put somebody down who’s genuinely trying to seek help is the absolute worse possible thing to do, and that’s why we police our Facebook group so heavily. There’s no second chances. If we ever see that, they’re gone, they’re gone for good.

We should unite together any way that we can. Now that doesn’t mean you have to like them or go fishing with them. I’m going to be very clear on that, because there’s going to be people out there that maybe you don’t like what they wear, or your don’t like something they said, or maybe they were just flat out wrong in terms of what they said or posted online, but at least encourage them.Especially, if they are out there trying to make a living. They’re out there trying to teach other people how to fish. More importantly, many of them are out there every day encouraging other young kids out there to fish, so don’t cut them down. It does nothing positive for the fishing industry.

Let me give you an example of a true story that just happened this past week.

We had an Instagram picture that we posted recently of a kid out fishing. I think the kid was nine or ten years old, and it was an awesome picture. He was out there fishing with an old Zebco and a big ol’ smile on his face. You know, the rod and reel that we all grew up fishing with probably here in Florida.

And some guy (an adult) started bashing this kid because he wasn’t using the right stuff. Meaning that he old tackle, and I was just like, you’ve got to be kidding me… I’m normally always pretty nice online, but I went back at this guy, and said, “Who are we to belittle a young ten year old boy for not having a $200 spinning reel?”

I mean, that’s obnoxious. We all started with e Zebco like this young kid, and you should have seen the smile on his face. He was having fun. It shocked me that someone would even put a negative comment on a picture like that. So even if you think of something negative to say it in the back of their head, don’t ever post that stuff out there. It does nothing to help the fishing industry.

We have to unite as anglers. I can’t say that enough. We have to unite as anglers to help this industry grow.

If not, it will be really hard to encourage enough young kids to get out there and fish today. Let’s face it, the kids today are not outside like we were. They’re not buying fishing licenses the way we were. They’re not out there fishing the way that Luke and I were twenty-five years ago.

Absolutely. We talked about one obvious reason that the decrease in kid’s fishing in America is happening.First of all, there’s a technology boom, and that’s not going to stop, so we’re always going to be fighting against that. I mean, look at the video games today. It’s crazy how real they are, right? The only thing to me that’s going beat a video game (Unless virtual reality gets even crazier and you can feel every single thing) is that experience of actually being outside and feeling that nibble or a huge strikeon the end of your rod.

No doubt! You can’t replace that bobber going down feeling. So I would encourage everyone to get out there, to take your kids out if you have them, and encourage other people to get outside and wet a line.A second big contributor to the lack of kids fishing is the increase in divorced parents.

Divorces are at all-time highs, and let’s just go back twenty-five years ago when we were growing up … I mean, it was a big deal if all of a sudden one of your friend’s parents were getting divorced. I remember the very first friend that whose parents got divorced, and it was a really big deal twenty-five years ago. It was the talk of the town, and now it’s almost like you’re a talk of the town if you’re not divorced.

The majority of people in America sadly get divorced, and now that means both parents in most cases are having to work (if not already), and that means, less time for the parents to go out and do stuff like fishing. It also split time with parents.

Split time with parents (from what I have seen with my divorced friends) is either the parents are trying to do something over the top fun and take them to cool places, or they just let them sit inside and play the cool video games because they have too much going on in their life. Any of you divorced parents, or divorced friends out there that you know, encourage them to get their kid’s outside fishing … If you know how to fish, take them out there fishing with you. Have them bring their kids, and show them how much fun it is.

That’s going to be a big focus for Luke and I this year… specific fishing courses for kids, and even for divorced parents on where to start. I don’t want another divorced dad, or any dad or mom for that matter, to have to go into Bass Pro with their two kids and not having any idea where to start.

I completely agree, it’s so important just to take people out who don’t yet really know what to do, and just teach them the basics. You don’t have to go put them on a tarpon, or teach them how to hand-tie a fly.It could just be a simple as going to a neighborhood pond, with a bobber, a little hook, and show them how to dig up worms, and you can catch all the fish you want.

In fact, that’s exactly how we started. We had a little garden in the back where we lived in Winter Haven, and I would just dig up worms all the time. Joe and I would beg our parents to take us out there, and we caught all sorts or brim and bass with those garden worms, so it doesn’t have to be a huge fish. It doesn’t have to be handmade lure, it just has to involve just getting out there, and having a good time with friends and family.

That’s how it should start for your first time fishing. If your very first experience is offshore fishing for a marlin, you’re not going to appreciate all the small stuff. I’ve been offshore fishing quite a few times, and I don’t remember half the fish I’ve caught. They kind of blur. I remember the big ones, like my nice marlin I have here mounted, but a lot of them blur. But I still remember my first bass that I caught, and where I was, and who was with me. That’s powerful stuff that you can’t really replace, so I would encourage you to get the cheap fishing gear to start … I mean, we fished with cane poles before we moved up to a Zebco. We’d put bread on the end of a little small hook, those cane poles would just catch bream and bluegills until we were tired of doing it.Back to the kids fishing, this is how I know it’s bad out there…

I don’t remember the guys name that posted this picture in our private Facebook group, but he took a picture of these three young boys that had been riding their bikes, and they had just parked their bikes to fish a little canal there near his neighborhood with some inexpensive rod and reel combos.

And he posted the picture and said, “This reminds me of the good old days. How come we don’t we don’t see this anymore?”

Well, that picture was blowing up with likes and comments because everyone our age and older could relate with it. It’s what we did back then, yet, we rarely see it today. I mean, the mere fact that this guy had to stop his truck take a picture with his cell phone, and then post it on Facebook means that were not seeing it anymore… and that is what scares us.

Think about it when you drrive around. How often do you just see random kids outside fishing on a bridge, a canal, or a lake?

It’s scary when you think about how it used to be just fifteen years ago.

As I mentioned, I think a lot of it has to do with technology, the video games, and the fact that kids today have too many choices. Think of how many choices you have when you wake up in the morning as a kid today… just the amount of choices on your phone alone is mind-boggling.

It’s yet another reason we must teach kids how to fish and expose them to positive experiences out on the water. It’s the only thing that can truly compete with a video game in my opinion.

Technology is out there, it is obviously appealing to kids, and even to parents, because it’s easy. To go fishing, you actually have to put some time on the schedule. It could be simple as a hour if it’s a little nearby lake or pond, but you actually have to do something. You have to get out of your house, and make time for it.It can only be a simple as thirty minutes or an hour, just get our there, try to catch one fish. I used to love just catching the worms. That was almost as fun as they fishing in my mind. You remember Joe, you and I used to have contests on who could catch the biggest worms out there in the garden.

Again, it was the entire process that I loved. Just learn something new.

Absolutely. Here’s what we’ll wrap up with… just kind of the steps if you will to make sure you go something out of this.One, is to take kids fishing. Encourage them to fish. Encourage their parents to take them fishing. And if you have a platform with a lot of anglers, start doing some teaching every once in a while.

It could be simple as knots. I was in Wal-Mart and saw this young guy recently… He was probably about sixteen years old, and he was trying to get rod, and I could tell he wasn’t sure what he was doing. He’s looking at rods, and I ended up asking him, “Hey, do you need help?” Sure enough, he was going to meet with some friends, he needed a new fishing rod, and he had no idea about anything. So I ended up helping him get the rod, one that would fit his needs at the lowest cost. Then I helped him pick out an ideal line.I told him the different knots to use, and before too long this kid was all set. But without that basic knowledge, he would have literally had no clue. He was completely overwhelmed in Wal-Mart even though there’s really only one or two aisles of fishing stuff, but yet to somebody to who just hasn’t been around it and been exposed to fishing, and what’s involved, it can be extremely overwhelming.

And you know, it really didn’t take much time just to help that individual. I probably spent maybe five minutes with him total. Now, he was at least knowledgeable enough to know what to do, and then how to do it.

And what you did could spread to his other friends and go viral if you will. Meaning, what you just did with that one guy in five minutes could end up impacting a lot of people.Let’s just say he does go out catch a fish that day after you helped him. Now he’s excited, and he’s putting fish pics on his Instagram page and all that, and because of his excitement, he then teaches a couple of more friends, and then they teach friends, etc. All from that one experience in Walmart, you accomplished something that could impact this kid for life. That’s pretty cool when you think about it.

Agree. Let’s move on to the other big lesson here.The next lesson is just be positive to other anglers. We are in this together.

While online it is easy to say whatever you want, it’s easy to be the negative guy, and it’s easy to be the troll… but just be positive.

It does nothing to help out our industry, and it does nothing to help encourage kids to go out there and fish when you are negative.

The third lesson is money equals power when it comes to an industry.

As I mentioned earlier, money can’t buy happiness, but it can sure buy you a ton of power as an industry. And if the fishing industry has plenty of money and enough “troops” out there all supporting one big mission, it’s unstoppable.

On the other hand, if there’s a generation gap, and this next generation doesn’t fish, it’s almost inevitable that we’re going to be stoppable at some point… because the industry will continue to shrink, and shrink, and shrink.

That is why teaching kids to fish and making sure this next generation is outside fishing that is the biggest threat to the future of the fishing industry.

Without money and without power we can’t fight all these short-term things, like Lake Okeechobee. Think if we have a billion dollars less in 30 years from now as an industry.

That’s just a billion less just to fight this big sugar thing, and whatever might be next… Because in five years from now, and in 25 years from now they’ll be something else that we’ll all have to be fighting together. And I’d rather have more money, and more people behind it, than fewer. I’m sure you can all agree.

Exactly. It’s all about us as anglers in total. We might have different personalities and different types of styles of fishing, but just at the basic angler level, we all need to respect each other, to be kind to one another, and to lift each other up.I don’t know if you’ve said this one today Joe, but you say it often, “A rising tide, lifts all ships.” That’s perfectly applicable to this, where we just need to stand together, just knowing that we might have differences, but at least respect that we all love and appreciate, and respect fishing. And as long as we do that, the entire fishing industry benefits.

Yeah, that’s good stuff. If you’ve made it this far, we first of all, just want to thank you. We hope you got something out it, and we’d love to hear your feedback on this.Teaching kids how to fish and getting more of them outside is going to be our big initiative here at Salt Strong this year, and if you want to support us, we’d obviously love it.

Even just a simple as subscribing to our site, to our Fish Strong podcast, or buying some of our gear.

As I mentioned, our whole philosophy, our mission is to get as many families and kids out there fishing as possible, and to create as many experiences out on the water as possible.

We’ve got a really unique platform because we have a couple hundred thousand anglers per month on our site, and growing.

So if you want to share anything with us like any cool fishing tips, great videos, or a great blog on fishing, share it with us so we can spread the word with our audience.

Our e-mail is fish@saltstrong.com.

Share anything with us. We would love to share your best content with our audience. We’ve done it with a few people that have sent over some great articles and videos, and it helped that content reach a ton of people. Help support fishing anyway you can.