More women are fishing the Upper Great Lakes

Kristy Taylor takes a steelhead fishing class from the Michigan
Department of Natural Resources. (NPR photo)

Fewer Americans are going fishing, but one place is bucking the trend, and in a surprising way. "In 2016, about 14 percent of Americans fished, and most of them were men. But a recent study on the Upper Great Lakes indicates female participation is on the rise," Morgan Springer reports for NPR. "It found that fishing-license sales increased among female anglers by about 4.5 percent between 2000 and 2015. That's an additional 43,000 female anglers."

Fly fishing is particularly popular among women, who now make up about 31 percent of the 6.5 million Americans who enjoy that sport.

Women's increased interest in fishing is good news for the Great Lakes, which have seen increasing algae blooms in recent years, possibly hurting recreation income. It's also good for conservation programs that depend on hunting and fishing license revenues for funding, Springer reports.

The population of new female anglers skews young: "Young women today are about two times more likely than women born in 1960 to buy a fishing license," said Richelle Winkler, the principal researcher in the Great Lakes fishing study and an associate professor at Michigan Technological University.

Winkler said she doesn't know why more women are fishing, but told Springer she has a hunch: "I think it's part of a broader cultural pattern of the world opening up a bit to women's participation in activities that have traditionally been seen as more masculine."