fastest growing outdoor sport

The Outdoor Industry Association offers kayak fishing participation estimates in its outdoor recreation survey. I haven't had an opportunity to look deeper into the numbers. They are:

2010: 1,044,000
2011: 1,201,000
2012: 1,409,000

Whatever their merits, they show a tremendous growth rate.

Yeah, I saw that they added that this year.  That wasn't in previous years reports, right?

The report I sent you was a partnership of the RBFF and the Outdoor Foundation (which is affiliated with the OIA I think, same logo).  So I think the numbers all come from the same surveys.

-Allen

It's going to take more work to figure out the trends, but I can say the following.

The use of a kayak for fishing happened in 2.6% of fishing trips.

20.5M Americans own a boat.  Of that 12.1% own a kayak or canoe.  That's about 2.5M.

The average number of boating days per year on a canoe/kayak is 6.4.

-Allen

Hah!  I quoted the 2011 numbers.  I wrote a little snippet for KFM with a little more clarity and some comparison with some other well known growth sports.

http://www.kayakfishingmagazine.net/articles/325-in-the-news/1762-kayak-fishing-continues-to-grow-in-2012.html

-Allen

dang that OLD pic has legs...

i can remember when you would paddle a half mile outta your way to meet another yakfisher seen on the water.
Now we're everywhere- and no one bothers

 Eight years ago when I started kayak fishing there where few if not at all kayak anglers on the water.
I don't exactly how to react to this except to accept and enjoy my own experiences.

I'm right with you on these points. When I started in '03 there were only a handful of people kayaking on the Sonoma Coast, now there seems to be kayakers at every launch, every week-end. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but I certainly don't like seeing pic after pic of full limits of little ass rockfish taken from anywhere on our coast....but at the same time I know I'm partly; if not mostly responsible for blowin' up TC, so I guess it just is what it is.

Same thing happened to surfing at ocean beach...there was a time, not long ago, when you would paddle out in the middle of the beach and if you saw someone, there was a sense of relief you weren't the only one out. Now OB is full of surfers...some of that IMO can be attributed to Jeff Clark selling out Mavericks...but there is of course more people in the Bay Area too.

Never been to a kayak shop with lines out the door and everything sold out. Guns is the fastest growing IMHO.