Fishing Republic buoyed by hooked anglers

The Rotherham-based firm is expecting strong growth this year as it branches out of its northern heartlands and opens stores in the South.

Like-for-like sales shot up by 45 per cent in the second half of 2015 and sales are expected to carry on growing as it opens new stores and demand increases for its online products.

Chief executive Steve Gross said: “Fishermen are buying more tackle. Instead of going half-a-dozen times a year they’re going a dozen times. They’ve seen programmes like The Big Fish Off. Fishing is showing up on everyone’s radar.”

He added that the younger generation are particularly interested in carp fishing.

“You can catch a big fish, take a photograph, put it on Facebook and then put the fish back,” he said.

Finance director Russell Holmes added: “The big trend is carp fishing and you need a lot of equipment for it. Anglers in our stores are like kids in a sweetshop.”

They were speaking as the firm announced a 22 per cent increase in revenue to £4.1m in 2015 while underlying pre-tax profits rose by three per cent to £305,000.

The firm is in the early days of its expansion and sees bigger growth ahead.

It floated on the Stock Exchange last June and costs associated with this knocked pre-tax profits back to £6,000.

Fishing is now the UK’s biggest participation sport and the sixth biggest overall.

Children are increasingly interested and will often make a weekend of it and use set-ups of two or three rods.