Is there any way to tell or is there data showing how many fishermen are also custom rod builders either personally for hobby or professionally for sales to the public? Curious what the percentage would be.

I know in Wisconsin only 3% of fisherman are also rod builders.

Lone Wolf Rods
"Keep your powder dry and your lines wet"
God Bless

Even counting those who only build one rod per year, the number of rod builders in a given year against fishermen in the same year is about 1 in 1500.

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22,000 (based on latest research showing 33,000,000 anglers in the US)? I thought you had research indicating a much higher number.

Nationally I don't know - Baltimore area (50mi radius) I know of 6 rod builders (hobby/business) among tens of thousands of fishermen. Guessing it would be something like 1 in 1200-1300

Every time I look over the buy sell page i see some one selling all there stuff ??

Now when the microwave rods come on the market ???

Bill - willierods.com

Jim,

I mis-stated, sorry. Went the wrong direction with the percentage. That figure should be about 1 in 750 fishermen. So it is indeed higher, but still a relatively small number. Custom rod builders comprise about .14 percent of the roughly 29 million fishermen (based on combined fresh and saltwater licenses sold last year, and which includes some cross-over).

Fishing has been on the decline for about 2 decades now. On a per capita basis, fishing reached its zenith around 1992. Today there are several million fewer fisherman against a much larger overall population.


By the way, here's the historical stats on license sales:

[wsfrprograms.fws.gov]

[wsfrprograms.fws.gov]

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Forrest,

By your figure of 3%, that would put 42,000 custom rod builders in Wisconsin alone.

The national average puts Wisconsin closer to having about 2000 custom rod builders, which I think is much more likely.

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I know 4-5 here in the Cape may NJ area,But they teach it at the local Vo-Tech and our High school has a Small class

I'm not surprised that those that fish don't build rods. Somehow I found myself surprised to find that some that build rods don't fish. I guess I shouldn't be as there are many examples where those that build the tools aren't the users of them. Musical instruments come to mind but guns might be a closer example.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Russell Brunt Wrote:
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> I'm not surprised that those that fish don't build
> rods. Somehow I found myself surprised to find
> that some that build rods don't fish. I guess I
> shouldn't be as there are many examples where
> those that build the tools aren't the users of
> them. Musical instruments come to mind but guns
> might be a closer example.


Lol....those that build them don't have enough time to use them as they once did or want to.

______________________________________
Super Tight Lines......Don

I build about 15 to 20 rods per year, the last 3 years. Hoddy builder. My fishing time went down the tube after I quit practicing and starting putting rods in other fishermen's hands. I used to spend a lot of time on the water but not any more. I have gotten to the point I enjoy the tails that customers tell me about catching fish on my rods than I do catching one myself.

I will say that the my job status 2 years ago I bought food off my rod money that was to be my "fishing stash" money. I have only heard of maybe 2 other builders in the part of Tennessee where I live.

my suggestion go to the biggest fishing forum and see the member quantity
then go to the biggest rod building forum and do the same thing
from this data you can get raw calculation

Hello from the Houston area. I build for a hobby and fish for another hobby. Most of the building that I do, I manage during the week so that I can have the weekends for my own fishing. If the weather isn't favorable for fishing or I have other things planned then I build on those weekends.