I have negotiated but yet to close on the purchase of a retail sports
store in Northern Calfornia that specializes in the sale of hunting
equipment.  Up to 3 years ago the inventory not only included hunting
equipment but guns.  The current owner then lost his license to sell
guns.  As a result, gross sales have declined between 15% - 20% per
annum.  I would like to know if sales in the retail sports industry
specializing in hunting equipment are rising, declining or remaining
stagnant and if there is a way of understanding what impact there
would be on sales if guns were returned to the inventory.

<The 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated
Recreation, published by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that
there was a 7 percent decrease in the number of hunters between 1991
and 2001. These have tended to be small game hunters. The number of
big game hunters and migratory bird hunters have remained constant.
Expenditure increased by 29 percent due to equipment expenditures. A
summary of the findings is given at
http://fa.r9.fws.gov/surveys/surveys.html
The full survey can be seen
http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/FHW01.pdf it contains a great deal
of information that would be useful to you. It contains a detailed
breakdown of expenditure and  details of participants in each state.
California had 2.74 million hunters in 2001. Overall in the U.S. the
number of hunters has increased by 31 percent from 1955 to 2001.
During the same period the fishing population increased 130 percent.

In 2001 hunters spent $4.6 billion on equipment like guns, rifles,
telescopic sights and ammunition. They spent $1.2 billion on equipment
like camping gear, special clothing and binoculars. Special equipment
like campers and trail bikes accounted for $4.6 billion. In California
spending on hunting equipment was over 1.6 billion in 2001.

Future legislation may impact on the business as animal rights
activists are currently trying to ban dove hunting and hunting of
mammals with dogs. http://www.gunownersca.com/
http://www.hsus.org/ace/18534

Gun sales rose dramatically as a response to the September 11,
terrorist attacks. http://www.nctimes.net/news/2001/20011231/55215.html

Despite the sudden rise in gun sales after September 11, the overall
trend is a decline in gun sales. In California handgun sales hit their
lowest level since records started in 1972. The University of
Chicago’s survey showed that gun ownership has declined. In 1996, 31
percent of adults owned a gun. In 2001, 24 percent of adults owned a
gun.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0402/p01s02-ussc.html

A report in Business Week Online says that hunting and gun sales are
declining.
http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_33/b3642001.htm

Despite sales to the general public decreasing, sales to hunters
appear to be good. Deer hunters spend on average $500 per year on
their sport. The owner of a sports store in Walker, Minnesota, sells
approximately 5000 firearms per year.
http://news.mpr.org/features/200211/18_robertsont_economics/

There are a couple of publications that may be of interest to you:
Marketing the hunting experience costs $1.00 and contains various
studies of the hunting market including effective ways of advertising.
Hunter expenditures to rural communities and landowners, examines the
spending of hunters. It also costs $1.00 For more information see
http://www.rpts.tamu.edu/tce/tcepublications.htm


The March 2003 edition of Ansom contains a feature about the hunting
market. See http://www.ansommag.com/index.shtm

The California Water Fowl Association has 17,000 hunters members.
http://www.calwaterfowl.org/duck_stamp00_02.htm



<Search strategy:>
<"hunting sales">
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_qdr=all&q=%22hunting+sales%22>

<"hunters in california">
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&as_qdr=all&q=%22hunters+in+california%22>


<Hope this helps.>

---

Request for Answer Clarification by charlierog-ga on 30 Mar 2003 21:53 PST

This is great US national information for me - thank you.  Do you know
if there is any information specific to just Northern California so I
can see what the local trends would be?

---

Clarification of Answer by belindalevez-ga on 31 Mar 2003 00:53 PST

Statistics of hunting licenses sold for Northern California for the
past ten years can be found at
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/pdffiles/Reg_HuntingItems10yr.pdf The
latest figures are for 2001 which are as follows:
Lake – 1285
Marin – 1937
Medocino – 2521
Napa – 4880
Sonoma – 5710
Total – 16333
Over recent years the trend has been for more licenses to be sold. The
figures for 2001 are higher than the period 1998-2000, but lower than
the period 1992-97

In California as a whole, according to the Department of Fish & Game,
77,000 hunters applied for big game tags. In the 2000/2001 season
there were 625,000 applications to hunt waterfowl.
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/statistics/statistics.html

Statistics relating to hunting license sales for California are listed
at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/licensing/pdffiles/h_sales_10yr.pdf


Fishing and Hunting News California
http://www.magazania.com/id/cji/group/837