Over the last three years, the number of organisations, associations and brands running initiatives around angling has increased dramatically.

Such is the activity in this sector that the aforementioned have become the new advertising medium for brands looking to match causes with corporate identity and brand exposure but are we actually doing anything constructive in terms of tackle sales as a whole?

Sales allow us to continue to invest, without them we disappear. If we are not generating genuine tangible results, ultimately in the form of sales, then we are just showing the existing angling fraternity some nice new, branded t-shirts to wear whilst they are gardening.

In the last few years, the industry has lifted itself out of a decades-long slumber and started to deal with its denial that anything is wrong with respect to angling participation. Now driven by a need to improve participation ASAP, industry brands focus on anything that looks good for their sector, or they plough their own furrow.

This fragmentation of the potential that exists also dissipates the financial impact that could be imparted. Instead of uniting behind an industry body that could add value to individual efforts and focus investment on outcomes and not just processes, we are in danger of creating chaos where there could be controlled accountable order.

Since Covid, angling has reached new heights in terms of a miracle cure and plumbed its lowest depths in terms of participation. Despite a huge boost from Covid and an ever-increasing financial scattergun approach from the trade, efforts to retain any increase in participation have failed miserably, and with numbers four per cent down on this period last year, due in part, one might suspect, to the soaring cost of living, the downward trend continues.

The lapsed angling fraternity, who by all accounts based on hard data, represent a huge number, are being largely overlooked as a short-term goal. Families and kids will potentially benefit the coffers if we stay in business long enough for them to have disposable income, but we also need to stop the churn, now.

Encouraging anglers to retain at least some percentage of their tackle whilst going through life should surely be a priority.

Where is our ‘One Day Game’, our ‘Twenty Twenty’? Maintaining angling as an option for the odd day out, even if we are having kids, moving in together or paying a mortgage.

The only bi-product of our activity that counts in short, medium and long term is increased tackle sales across the board, not just an increased share of a dwindling market. Everything else relies on this one product and the best indicator for success is licence sales because licence holders are thinking often enough about angling to buy tackle and go fishing on a regular basis. Lack of attention to what underpins our ability to support some fantastic angling-based charities, will ultimately cost both those charities and the industry dear and we need to ask ourselves if we are just financing someone’s existence or actually generating real outcomes for our business now and in the future.