Virus effects on the Fishing Industry

With all the problems we are going through with the Covid virus I thought I would give my readers an update of the fishing industry as it has affected what I consider the relative parts to the fishing industry. Let me first say the most obvious thing is the cancellations of fishing trips, although the month of June picked up considerable there was a time when cancellations were mounting much faster than bookings. Certainly, if we go backwards again with the increasing cases as it appears, we might the cancellations will once again be the biggest issue for me.


However there are many things going on that most weekend fisherman don’t see; the first that comes to mind is getting fishing tackle many of the retail stores and local tackle stores have been unable to stock their shelves as the wholesale source for most of the stores have been unable to ship product. Some just shut their doors and had no one to fill orders, others just could not get product from their suppliers. Suppliers that many weekends fisherman use like Tackle Warehouse just lost their ability to ship quickly because of lack of people to do so and certainly their supply chain was also weakened.
The thing that many of us observed that fished many days during this was the number of people on the water with many people working from home or just off work the number of local fisherman on the water increased substantially every day. However, the opposite was true with out of town fisherman as getting hotels and finding restaurants were nearly impossible or dangerous based on your thoughts on this issue. The boating industry basically shut down production forcing boat sellers to rely on their inventory prior to the shut down; thanks to some who were positioned with inventory there was still bass boats to sell for many. Parts for repairs however were tough to come by as many boat manufacturers did not even have parts available or someone to ship them if they did and the same could be said for the out board motors on the bass boats. This has been tough on the fishing industry and this is just a few things we have had to deal with.


Fish Lake Guntersville Guide Service
www.fishlakeguntersvilleguideservice.com
www.facebook.com/FishGuntersville
Email: bassguide@comcast.net
Call: 256 759 2270
Capt. Mike Gerry