There is no doubt that it’s been an interesting year in the recreational fishing industry. Those that follow tournament fishing have seen a lot of discussion around professional bass fishing, and there has been a lot of buzz around tackle sales. Speaking of which, there are some narratives floating around that don’t seem to be based on facts. So I reached out to several tackle retailers and a few manufacturers to see if I could get a better feel for what is really going on, as well as what insights we could glean from the data.
I was able to talk to a large online retailer, several independent tackle shops around the country, and manufacturers in a few different niches to find out how tackle sales have really gone in 2024.
Fishing tackle sales, much like fishing, are affected by a myriad of factors and influenced by a greater number of details. So there is no single “cause or reason” to explain everything. While there are no concrete answers, the information presented here is based on actual results from those in the fishing industry. Unfortunately, we can’t interview every retailer and manufacturer. But retailers talk directly to the manufacturers, and they were able to share some insights from ones we didn’t contact as well.
WHAT AFFECTS TACKLE SALES
How much fishing tackle is purchased in a year can be affected by many things. The number of anglers fishing, the economy and/or the availability of disposable income to spend on hobbies, cost of the outdoor goods, diversification of products available, weather conditions and seasonality all play a role, as well as new tackle and technique trends.
To expand a little here, obviously the more people you have fishing, the more potential there is to sell fishing tackle. We saw a boom in fishing participation during the COVID lockdowns. But that was short lived, as the numbers appear to be trending back below pre-COVID participation numbers.
The economy factors in. How can it not? When groceries are four times more expensive than they were two years ago, it’s hard to take a bunch of money and go buy a $250 reel for fun fishing. There also seems to be a growing trend of more affordable options for a large variety of fishing gear, and there are a lot more anglers looking for those lower priced, but still good-quality options.
It also seems once you get out of the bass fishing space, a lot of companies are trending up. And some pretty significantly. That may be because more anglers fishing for other species or the fact that if your shop or tackle company has a wider diversity of product offerings, they are more insulated from trends and reactions in certain niches.
And of course the weather always factors into fishing purchases. If you get a ton of rain in the spring, a longer than usual winter, or blazing heat in the summer it can make for tougher fishing and limited opportunities to go fish — or buy fishing tackle. I know my local tackle shops get pretty quiet on the rainy days here.
So as you can see a myriad of factors can drive sales up or down. And the more factors with negative results, the more sales will be down. So trying to pin it on one thing is always a simpleton way to attribute outcomes.
TACKLE CATEGORY UPS AND DOWNS
So, about tackle sales in 2024. I’ve heard the entire spectrum of answers. A bunch of manufacturers said they are up more than 20% this year. Several manufacturers have told me they are down a bit from last year. A few have told me they are down a bunch. Likewise, several of the tackle shops I talked to were up, including the larger online tackle retailer I spoke in detail with. While they were down in a few categories (and not the ones you probably think), they were significantly up in others. Which led to them being up for the year.
What is interesting to note is the narrative that live sonar technologies are killing tackle sales. That’s a fairly naive take when you start digging into the numbers from larger retailers and small shops alike. The large online retailer I talked to told me they were up 60% in jighead sales and and up 105% in minnow plastics.
There’s an obvious correlation to forward-facing sonar (FFS) there. However, when FFS is banned next year on some circuits, you are still going to see a large number of anglers shopping for jigheads and minnow baits. Because they are a super effective fish catcher, with or without live sonar. And one circuit not allowing something doesn’t cancel tackle sales. I call it crappie jigging, because that’s all it really is. The same thing I’ve been doing with a crappie jig for more than two decades (yes, I shake my crappie jig to get more bites).
However, some things did not add up. Crankbaits were up 14%. Now inside of the category there were some surprises like Rapala DT Series being down more than 30%. But even still, that isn’t that surprising to me. I own somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 DT crankbaits. It will be a long time before I buy another one. Same with SPRO Little Johns, Strike King 6XDs and a few other staples. Thing is, when you load up on something you know works, you don’t have to buy them for a long time.
I think that is why you also see certain manufacturers complaining right now about tackle sales while others are enjoying great growth. For example, If you primarily make flat-side, balsa crankbaits, you probably are hurting. Is that because of technology or because you primarily focus on a lure that I can only fish three of the 52 weeks a year? Meanwhile a swimbait, jig minnow, a Chatterbait and a jig and chunk are on my deck 52 weeks a year.
Same for topwaters. I get to enjoy about 8 weeks with them. And, I haven’t lost a topwater lure since I was a kid. I’ve broken a few. But again, if no really cool new topwaters come out, I’m probably not buying any.
And keep in mind while Rapala sales are down for the DT Series, their Crush City lures are selling like crazy, speaking to diversity in product offerings here.
Another interesting category from this large online retailer, casting reels were up 19%, but spinning reels were down 3%. That doesn’t fit that live sonar narrative either. Spinnerbaits were also up 48%. Again I don’t see many of those getting thrown on spinner poles or at FFS fish. So you see how hard it is to assign cause to any one thing. I do know there was a lot of rain in the spring which made for some great spinnerbait fishing. I do know they bit a spinnerbait pretty good offshore again this year on the TVA. So again regional factors can be at play here as well.
PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION HELPS IN MANY WAYS
There are some manufacturers who were up this year but don’t sell any minnow baits or minnow jigheads. That’s probably because they make lures for multiple species and have a ton of SKUs.
One of the local tackle shops I talked to said he was up more than 25% this year. But he carries stuff for bass, crappie, bluegill, catfish and stripers/white bass. So he’s diversified in tackle and does a good job keeping the staples stocked while bringing in a handful of new stuff every year.
One of the manufacturers who doesn’t make any products for bass fishing said they were having really good growth again this year. They carry products for panfish, trout and crappie. Again a diverse portfolio across several species seems to insulate against trends in any one niche.
I also talked to a shop down south that caters mostly to bass anglers, and avid bass anglers at that. They were down pretty significantly this year (21%). They have store front and sell online, and they offered some great explanations on why they thought they were down.
“The economy was certainly a factor,” they said. “It feels like people are spending differently because everything is so expensive now, so things that are not necessities, like fishing tackle, have been eliminated or scaled back. Fisherman will follow the trends, to some extent. Obviously FFS baits are hot right now, but people have been downsizing baits for a while now. For instance, we haven’t had a deep crankbait or a big spoon bite in several years. That could just be our lake, but the ledge bite has not been as much of a factor for us in terms of product sales in at least 2-3 years.”
They are not seeing as many customers come through the doors. And when they do, those people window shop and are very selective with their purchases as compared to years past where they bought a lot of different baits to try a lot of different things. To combat that, they are expanding their product lines, focusing on social media campaigns to reach new people by working with content creators to make videos as photo posts are not working for getting customers into the store anymore.
TACKLE TRENDS AND EXPLANATIONS
The jig minnow thing has been going on for several years. Hover strolling added another dimension to it, making the presentation as effective horizontally as it was vertically. And that resulted in an explosion of new offerings in minnow plastics and jigheads. But that’s not unlike any other trend we’ve seen in fishing.
Big swimbaits, Alabama rigs and small swimmers like Keitechs, super deep-diving crankbaits like the Strike King 10XD and 8XD, vibrating jigs like the Chatterbait and Jack Hammer and a whole bunch more all saw boom periods where the was an explosion of sales for this latest trend, and then it ebbed and receded back to more normal sales volumes. I can remember several years ago, tackle shops couldn’t get 10XDs fast enough to keep one on the shelves along the Tennessee River. Now go in any tackle shop and the pegs are full of them.
Same thing for Alabama rigs. You could hardly find one the first couple of years and had to wait months for them to come back in stock. Now every shop has 10 different kinds.
The big swimbait craze is interesting to me as an anomaly. I know one small maker of big swimbaits that caught fire with the tournament crowd and they are basically printing money, struggling economy be damned. So where there is a buying fury on a certain trend, it makes it look like other tackle isn’t selling. People fail to see the flip side. If I buy a $150 swimbait, I’m not going to buy much else for tackle. I had to choose to not buy other things and put that money towards this one thing. That’s a natural occurrence with spending in any hobby, and something we’ve seen for a long time in fishing. If you decide you want a new “insert product here,” then you likely have already decided to not buy X, Y and Z products as a trade off.
The other thing I’ve been seeing is more and more affordable tackle is coming into the market. We geek out on some of the high-end JDM tackle for sure. But I’m also finding some really good rods, reels, lures at much lower prices from new manufacturers and old manufacturers alike. I think there is a growing part of the angling community that is seeking out affordable options. Which is why you are hearing that some big brand names in rods and reels are down while some new up-and-comers are way up.
I have a bunch of rod and reel combos that are more than $1,000. But I find myself picking up my $35 ultralight rod a lot more and my $99 bass rods just as much. Because there are a lot of great products getting introduced at those lower price points now. Obviously lower price points skew numbers and directly affect manufacturers who have historically carried higher priced products.
REGIONAL ELEMENTS CAN MATTER TOO
It also seems that some parts of the country might fair better than others at times. The Midwest had a pretty mild spring and a pretty hot and dry summer. The North had an early warm up as well. Those equate to more fishing days on the water in those areas. The opposite happens when areas are flooded for a long time or have longer winters. Other areas are dry, or low, or just flat out too hot to fish. Those things can make your fishing opportunities diminish and you should expect sales to follow suit in those regions.
So it’s not hard to see why one tackle shop over here is way up and one over there is down a healthy percentage.
It’s human nature to have a “knee-jerk” reaction to something you are passionate about and try to seek out narratives that fit your biases. But logically speaking, most consumer behaviors are easily explained when you look at all the ways angling and tackle sales are affected by these wide ranges of factors.
