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FISHING: Luring back recreational anglers who got away

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Every winter, members of the Kamloops and District Fish and Game Association gather at a frozen lake in an exercise designed to fight a growing national trend. In British Columbia, and right across Canada, fewer people are involved in recreational angling each year. A cultural shift is taking place in a country where, a generation ago, almost every family had fishing rods in the basement.

This is a development welcomed by groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which likens fishing to animal torture.

But it isn't good news for the fish, because sports anglers are powerful advocates who spend countless hours fighting to protect salmon and trout habitat.

PETA has yet to rebuild a single stream, but recruits stars like Paul McCartney to cast aspersions on a great sport with a remarkable environmental legacy.

Without anglers, there wouldn't be anyone left out there to rebuild spawning beds, restore streamside vegetation or blow the whistle on polluters. Fisheries biologists and habitat managers would become redundant.

According to a Statistics Canada report released this summer, the number of recreational anglers nationally is down about 25 per cent over the past decade. The latest published data are for 2005, when about 3.2 million adults bought fishing licences. That's 825,000 fewer than in 1995.

Anyone who goes fishing will tell you that the trend being tracked by Statscan has continued since 2005, as it is obvious there are not as many anglers out on the water this summer.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has more up-to-date data, and the record shows that last year 240,175 saltwater licences were sold in B.C. That is a drop of nearly 7,500 anglers from 2006 and down more than 17,000 from 2003.

This year, with high gasoline prices and the U.S. economy in turmoil, there will be an even greater decline in the number of anglers. Already some lodges are reporting cancellations of up to 40 per cent of bookings this summer.

The foreign anglers will come back to Canada when the U.S. economy picks up, but what of the resident fishermen who have been wandering away from the water in steady and growing numbers for the past decade? Are they gone forever? Sports-fishing organizations hope not and across Canada many groups have set out to lure fishermen back into their ranks.

The Kamloops effort is just one example. There, on a cold, bright day each January, the local rod and gun club members gather on Walloper Lake, just south of the city, where they build bonfires, cut holes in the ice and hand out fishing rods and bait. They give people bags for their trout and will gladly teach them not only how to hook a fish, but how to clean and cook it, too.

Many of the 200 people they had out on Jan. 27 were families, where both the little kids and the parents were fishing for the first time. Some parents had fished as children themselves, before their busy lives made them fall out of touch with the sport. The ice-fishing day is designed to help them fall back into it.

The Kamloops association holds a similar event each June, on Father's Day, offering the same kind of support on open water. To help draw people back to the sport of fishing, the B.C. government waives the requirement for an angling licence on Father's Day. Go fishing on us, the government says, we think you'll like it.

The Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C., a non-profit organization that works in partnership with the provincial government to stock nine million fish in 1,000 B.C. lakes each year, is also working to halt the declining number of sports anglers.

The organization offers a learn-to-fish program in several communities, where lakeside instructors stand by five days a week to give free lessons to anyone 16 and younger. The lessons cover how to identify your catch, what gear to use and how to use it. Environmental awareness is also taught, so you learn not only how to catch a fish, but how to let one go, too.

On its website, at www.gofishbc.com, the society has maps and guidebooks to help lead people to some of the best fishing waters in the province.

What is perhaps most surprising about the decline in sports anglers is that the fishing - at least the freshwater trout fishing in B.C. - has been getting better. Salmon and steelhead runs are down dramatically and there are widespread fishery closings. But the society has mastered the art of growing big rainbow trout in the province's lakes.

The fish are out there. Now they just need somebody to catch them.