As Maine goes, so goes the nation? Not when it comes to fishing.

Fewer Americans are hanging the “Gone Fishin’” sign on their doors. Nationally, sales of fishing licenses are on a downward slope. A recent article in the NY Times cited U.S. Census Bureau figures showing a three percent loss in anglers from 1991 to 2001. The trade group Outdoor Industry Association’s research arm, the Outdoor Industry Foundation, found a nearly 20 percent drop in participation in flyfishing from 2004 to 2005, and 300 million fewer fishing outings of all kinds over the same period.

Maine, thank goodness, is going the other way. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife says license sales in 2006 were the highest in the past 12 years and well above the 14-year average. (Thank you, Wendy Bolduc of MDIFW for those figures.)

Fishing ranks only 7th among Mainers’ outdoor recreational activities, behind wildlife viewing, trail sports, paddling, bicycling, snow sports, and camping. Only hunting has lower participation. Still, the state sold 279,262 fishing licenses last year.

There are probably a lot of reasons for the national decline in interest in fishing, but I think one is simply that we have become a less contemplative, faster-moving society. Kids demand action in their video games, movies and on TV. Fishing doesn’t exactly guarantee action. Also, many kids’ weekends are pretty tightly scripted by parents who seem to fear that a nanosecond of idleness will lead a kid into a life of dissolution, debauchery and self-destruction, much like my own.

When I was growing up, parents also had a script for their kids on summer weekends. It was one-line script, delivered at full volume if we lingered around the house for more than a minute after breakfast: “Go outside!” So we would hop on our bikes and cruise the town for similarly evicted pals and discuss whether to play ball or go fishing. If we didn’t have enough ballplayers for even a game of scrub, we went fishing.

That Maine is bucking the national trend towards a decline in fishing is good news: we’re still living “the way life should be,” at least by one measure. It means Maine dads and kids are still sharing quiet days in boats or on streambanks, and Maine kids are still learning the pleasures of angling and acquiring the immeasurable benefits of patience, persistence and positive interaction with the natural world.