Airport arrivals, nonresident hunting licenses and sales at sporting goods stores -- three indicators of the financial success of the pheasant hunting season -- all declined during 2008 in Mitchell.
The number of people who arrived at the Mitchell Municipal Airport from October to December declined by 17 percent, falling from 3,932 people during that timeframe in 2007 to 3,258 in 2008.
The number of nonresident small-game licenses sold in Davison County, of which Mitchell is the county seat, slipped by 6 percent from 18,308 in 2007 to 17,205 in 2008, according to preliminary data. The pheasant season began in October and ended early this month.
At the airport, the biggest fall-off occurred in November. Mike Scherschligt, the airport manager, blamed the economy.
"A lot of it I think was due to the crash that kind of happened in October," he said. "Things were up in the air for a lot of people."
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Chuck Schlueter, of the state Department of Game, Fish and Parks, said the economy probably also impacted license sales. He thinks the weather might have played a significant role, too. Specifically, he said, early storms that delayed the harvest left a lot of crops in the field and made hunting difficult for the first few weeks of the season.
"There's a good network of communication with hunters," Schlueter said. "When the hunting is good, word spreads fast. When it's not so good, that word gets around, too."
Schlueter said state officials were still pleased with the numbers. Statewide, sales of nonresident small-game hunting licenses declined by only about 2 percent from 103,924 in 2007 to 101,510 in 2008.
"You have to be pleased with those licenses sales, considering all the negative factors," Schlueter said.
Gross sales from the Mitchell ZIP code in the category of "Sporting Goods & Bicycle Shops" declined by 11 percent in 2008 as compared to 2007, according to reports compiled by the state Department of Revenue and Regulation. The gross sales fell from $38.191 million in 2007 to $33.960 million in 2008.
The sales reports do not identify specific businesses, but Cabela's is no doubt the major contributor to the "Sporting Goods & Bicycle Shops" category. Cabela's Inc. executives are scheduled to discuss their fourth-quarter and full fiscal-year financial results in a conference call next month.
In an Oct. 30 news release about the company's third-quarter earnings, Dennis Highby, Cabela's president and chief executive officer, said the company was anticipating a tougher fourth quarter and was therefore adjusting its projected revenue growth for 2008 down from the mid-teens.
"We head into the fourth quarter fully cognizant of the current environment and its potential impact on the upcoming holiday selling season," Highby said. "Therefore, we believe it is prudent to adopt a more conservative outlook and now expect high single-digit percentage revenue growth for fiscal 2008."
