INSIDE FISH & GAME by Roy and Ardia Neves – September/October 2020

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR – September/October 2020
August 26, 2020
TEXAS FISH & GAME Staff – September/October 2020
August 26, 2020

Invest in Silver Linings

FINDING ANYTHING POSITIVE these days has been a real challenge. But there are silver linings all around us.

Unless you’re one of those Live Free or Die purists who would literally rather die than follow the basic common sense recommendations of most healthcare experts, your lifestyle has changed radically since Covid-19 invaded our shores and our mindsets. Your movements outside the home have been restricted and strategic. Many things you did without a second thought, especially during your personal time, are now off the table. Recreation has become both abundant—thanks to upended work schedules and loads of free time—and at the same time severely limited.

It is likely that 175,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 by the time you read this. So, it is hard to find anything positive about the situation we’re in. But as Americans, as Texans, as Human Beings, we need optimism to survive. There MUST be silver linings, somewhere. Otherwise, we might just give up. After all, as Bluto so aptly put it in “Animal House,” Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

So we’re looking. And we see rich veins of silver around the clouds of disease and economic crisis.

Restrictions on travel, access to workplaces and schools and other public destinations have allowed us to spend more time with our immediate families and to engage in slower paced, more contemplative activities. Mothers and fathers became teachers. Children stayed home, hanging out with parents and siblings rather than with their “gangs.” Sure, there have been problems with this, in dysfunctional situations where alcohol abuse and domestic violence happened and, with school closures and general stay-at-home advisories, children have been deprived the benefit of social engagement with peers. But, for a while and for most, it has been refreshing to boil things down to the basics of family living.

As a by-product of this cultural re-set, many families and individuals are re-discovering or are discovering for the first time the wonders of outdoors sports.

If crowded bars and indoors gatherings represent the height of risky behavior these days, activity in the outdoors represents the opposite. And throngs of people are arriving at this obvious conclusion.

Our boat dealers are telling us that sales have been historically high this year. People who have found themselves with all that extra time, and fewer recreational opportunities, and who also realize that social distancing is a wise course of action, are investing in family boats as both a short and long term answer to this new recreational dilemma. If not for the fact that the crisis that has encouraged this boom in demand has also caused a bust in supply, this year would probably go down as a record breaker for the boating industry. Fishing tackle manufacturers are experiencing similar boom markets, and are also suffering the exasperation of not being able to keep up with the sudden demand.

And of course, on the Field side of the outdoors industry, gun and ammo sales have gone through the roof this year. But in that case, much of the market rush has been driven by political forces, similar to what happened in the early years of the previous presidential administration that prompted a few cynics at 2010 and 2011 S.H.O.T. Shows to suggest nominating President Obama for “Salesman of the Year.”

This demand phenomenon creates a frustrating paradox, given that we’re still in the worst economic downturn of our lifetimes and these companies, thanks to the supply shortages, are not reaping any windfalls. Yet, there is still a lot to celebrate. The statistics are far from conclusive, but anecdotally, our conversations with dealers and manufacturers are consistently positive: more and more people are clamoring for the gear to get outside. One statistic that does back up this analysis is the news from CCA-Texas that this year’s S.T.A.R. tournament has registered more than 13,000 new entries—people who have never fished in the tournament before.

At a fundamental level, this is all pretty darn positive. Before Covid, interest in fishing and hunting was on a steep decline. If the jarring reality of this pandemic has forced people to rethink their use of recreational time, it may mark a turning point in the health of outdoors sports.

When times are bad, the smart money is buying. In this market, we’re bullish on Silver Lining futures.

 

E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com

 

Return to CONTENTS Page

 

Progressive

ADVERTISEMENT

 

Loading

Invest in Silver Linings 

FINDING ANYTHING POSTIVE these days has been a real challenge. But there are silver linings all around us.

Unless you’re one of those Live Free or Die purists who would literally rather die than follow the basic common sense recommendations of most healthcare experts, your lifestyle has changed radically since Covid-19 invaded our shores and our mindsets. Your movements outside the home have been restricted and strategic. Many things you did without a second thought, especially during your personal time, are now off the table. Recreation has become both abundant—thanks to upended work schedules and loads of free time—and at the same time severely limited.

It is likely that 175,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 by the time you read this. So, it is hard to find anything positive about the situation we’re in. But as Americans, as Texans, as Human Beings, we need optimism to survive. There MUST be silver linings, somewhere. Otherwise, we might just give up. After all, as Bluto so aptly put it in “Animal House,” Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

So we’re looking. And we see rich veins of silver around the clouds of disease and economic crisis.

Restrictions on travel, access to workplaces and schools and other public destinations have allowed us to spend more time with our immediate families and to engage in slower paced, more contemplative activities. Mothers and fathers became teachers. Children stayed home, hanging out with parents and siblings rather than with their “gangs.” Sure, there have been problems with this, in dysfunctional situations where alcohol abuse and domestic violence happened and, with school closures and general stay-at-home advisories, children have been deprived the benefit of social engagement with peers. But, for a while and for most, it has been refreshing to boil things down to the basics of family living.

As a by-product of this cultural re-set, many families and individuals are re-discovering or are discovering for the first time the wonders of outdoors sports.

If crowded bars and indoors gatherings represent the height of risky behavior these days, activity in the outdoors represents the opposite. And throngs of people are arriving at this obvious conclusion.   

Our boat dealers are telling us that sales have been historically high this year. People who have found themselves with all that extra time, and fewer recreational opportunities, and who also realize that social distancing is a wise course of action, are investing in family boats as both a short and long term answer to this new recreational dilemma. If not for the fact that the crisis that has encouraged this boom in demand has also caused a bust in supply, this year would probably go down as a record breaker for the boating industry. Fishing tackle manufacturers are experiencing similar boom markets, and are also suffering the exasperation of not being able to keep up with the sudden demand.

And of course, on the Field side of the outdoors industry, gun and ammo sales have gone through the roof this year. But in that case, much of the market rush has been driven by political forces, similar to what happened in the early years of the previous presidential administration that prompted a few cynics at 2010 and 2011 S.H.O.T. Shows to suggest nominating President Obama for “Salesman of the Year.”

This demand phenomenon creates a frustrating paradox, given that we’re still in the worst economic downturn of our lifetimes and these companies, thanks to the supply shortages, are not reaping any windfalls. Yet, there is still a lot to celebrate. The statistics are far from conclusive, but anecdotally, our conversations with dealers and manufacturers are consistently positive: more and more people are clamoring for the gear to get outside. One statistic that does back up this analysis is the news from CCA-Texas that this year’s S.T.A.R. tournament has registered more than 13,000 new entries—people who have never fished in the tournament before.

At a fundamental level, this is all pretty darn positive. Before Covid, interest in fishing and hunting was on a steep decline. If the jarring reality of this pandemic has forced people to rethink their use of recreational time, it may mark a turning point in the health of outdoors sports.

When times are bad, the smart money is buying. In this market, we’re bullish on Silver Lining futures.

 

E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com

 

Return to CONTENTS Page

 

Progressive

ADVERTISEMENT

Comments are closed.