I don't think the term "gender neutral' enters into anglers lives.. they are very grounded souls who don't take offense just because someone lost sight if a normal world where people didn't get all upset for no good reason.

*Gets of soap box*

Oh, but it enters into bureaucrats' lives! ;)

Maybe it's a relic from British English as opposed to spoken American Engish. Relics tend to have a longer life in bureaucracy;-)
For me as a Central European angling means fishing with a hook and fishing means fishing with a net. I think British English makes that distinction but as a non native speaker I can't be sure...

Perhaps, but curiously, many words and phrases that are thought of as "Americanisms" are in fact survivals of older British usage--"fall" in the sense of "autumn," for example. So it's not necessarily the case that American usage is more innovative!

I wasn't catching the reference re "PC" language since the sign made perfect sense to me. It took me a few minutes to realize that the sign might have, at one point in the past, said 'fishermen'. To me there is value in not 'gendering' activities, so unless the language was getting awkward sounding (e.g., "fishing persons"), I'd vote for simple, gender-neutral, language. "Angler" seems perfect unless it's an inaccurate description of what fishing folk are actually doing at the site.