As Wisconsin's Fishing Season Opens Today, Fishing License Sales are Down

Saturday, May 4th, 2024 -- 10:00 AM

(Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio) Wisconsin’s fishing opener on inland lakes begins today.

But, according to Danielle Kaeding with Wisconsin Public Radio, while dedicated anglers will be headed back to the water, annual fishing license sales are on the decline after a boost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the last year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources sold around 805,000 annual fishing licenses to residents through the end of March. Tim Gary, the DNR’s budget and policy analyst, said that’s well below the low of nearly 824,000 licenses sold through the end of March 2020.

Wisconsin reached a high of 944,000 licenses sold to residents through March of 2021 as more people headed outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic. When combined with out-of-state residents, that number climbed to 1.1 million licenses sold.

That pandemic boom appears to have gone bust. “We are seeing, big picture, a return to the decline that was occurring prior to COVID-19,” Gary said. “What we’re seeing is a lot of residents are aging into the senior citizen section. So we’re seeing some growth there in the number of senior citizen licenses that are being sold, but we’re seeing declines elsewhere kind of across the board.”

Fewer licenses being sold for fishing and hunting means there is less revenue going toward state programs that support those hobbies. Standard fishing licenses cost $20 for residents, and DNR figures show they made up 52 percent of all annual resident licenses sold through March of 2017.

But that decreased to 47 percent of all licenses sold through March of this year. During the same timeframe, the state sold 782,508 resident deer hunting licenses from through March of 2017. Sales have since dropped by roughly 5 percent to 741,554 licenses sold from through March of 2024.

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