From our friend, Scott Papich, whose company Trackfly, monitors what’s up, what’s down, and so forth:
TrackFly is a data aggregation and analytics platform, connecting specialty retailers, brands and sales professionals. They are helping Angling Trade track key industry trends.
YTD through July, total product sales have been down low single digits (versus comparable months of 2024).
That said, several important categories have been up: Flies, Leader-Tippet, and some Accessories (specifically Nets, Indicators, Floatant). This strongly suggests that, although fly anglers have not spent on larger-dollar gear categories quite to past year’s levels, they are spending on the “consumables” categories needed to get out on the water. So, we believe people are fishing as much as last year, but many are doing so with rods, reels, waders, softgoods, packs and watercraft they have acquired prior to 2025.
That is not to say that no one is buying higher-dollar gear; only that those higher-dollar categories are down measurably from 2024.
One notable and interesting exception is the category of Vehicle Racks/Transport (think Riversmith, Thule, Trxstle, Yakima, etc.). It’s a tiny category, but it’s up in 2025 more than any other product category.
TrackFly: “You have to make business decisions every day; why not do it with real data and insights on your side?”
Get more detailed information on the thoughts above from Trackfly at our substack page.
