JFigliuolo
02-16-2007, 01:36 PM
Grabbed from another site...
Why buy license when we can't keep fish?
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/16/07
BY JOHN GEISER
CORRESPONDENT
Some advocates of a saltwater fishing license are walking into some very sticky ground as management officials continue to tighten the regulatory noose on harvest.
Recreational fishermen are increasingly asking what they might expect to get for their money. Management officials can only point to the record: less of practically everything that swims inshore except ling, bergalls and conger eels. This is not a persuasive argument for a saltwater fishing license.
Organizations spend millions of dollars promoting dreams of an idyllic saltwater setting such as I enjoyed on Barnegat Bay with my great-grandfather catching weakfish in the 1930s. A uniformed agent boarding the boat checking for fishing licenses is not part of the dream. The American Sportfishing Association should spend anglers' money fighting a saltwater license, not supporting it. One of the wonderful things about saltwater fishing is the freedom to participate without buying a license.
Liberty — the stuff our forefathers fought for — is precious. No promises of launching ramps, research into the workings of the inner ear of the bergall, or an ocean pout in every pot are worth losing the freedom to fish without buying a license.
The pressure for a saltwater license is building all along the East Coast with Delaware, Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts all considering it. The federal government is pushing the idea from several directions.
The sales campaign is all about squeezing more money out of anglers. The recreational fishing public buys a $22 highly migratory species permit, pays a 10 percent excise tax on all fishing tackle, pays a 7 percent sales tax on all bait, tackle, boats, marine equipment and supplies, buys permits to register their boats, licenses to operate their boats, and pays marine fuel taxes.
The big echo in the saltwater fishing license hall is "dedicated." The angler shrugs, and says, "I'm for a license as long as the money is dedicated for saltwater fishing."
What does dedicated mean? Is there a serious angler anywhere who truly believes that buying a license is going to put more fluke in the sea?
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is going to continue to strangle the winter flounder angler, restrict the fluke fisherman, cut the recreational weakfish harvest, choke the blackfish angler, throttle the porgy fisherman, and suppress the sea bass angler with or without a license.
Does anyone think the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the ASMFC and the National Marine Fisheries Service would change tactics because anglers bought a saltwater fishing license?
The "dedicated" money would create more offices with more administrators, more clerks, more law enforcement personnel, more census takers, more biologists and more laboratories. If these additions are necessary, then the general public should pay for them, if not through normal budgetary funding, then through a marine fish lottery. This is a public resource, not a recreational angling resource.
Some form of a lottery or innovative fishing tournament, tied to the striped bass fishery, for instance, would bring in millions of dollars while still preserving the right to fish in salt water without buying a license.
The supporters of the "dedicated" theory should remember that this is not an exclusive environment. No amount of license money will give anglers a greater share or more say over the marine resources than environmentalists and commercial fishermen.
This is not hunting or freshwater fishing where there are no commercial brant hunters, no one buys a license to kill and sell deer or harvests stocked trout for the supermarket.
Environmentalists who cry the loudest for preservation of the marine environment and everything in it should be the first to step up with some constructive proposals to end foreign destruction of marine resources, and forget about restricting and taxing U.S. anglers.
Commercial fishermen who are increasingly vocal in support of a saltwater license for anglers should think about a "product" license for themselves with the cost passed on to consumers.
After all, the commercial fisherman fishes for the general public. That is why he gets 60 percent of the fluke quota, and can keep 14-inch fluke.
A New Jersey blackfish potter buys a $100 state license, and can set out 500 pots, fish as long as he wants, and catch as many blackfish as he can. If an angler bought a $30 license, as proposed, he would still be limited to one blackfish per day from June 1 through Nov. 14.
The biggest hoax being generated about a saltwater fishing license is that the mandate in the Magnuson-Stevens Act is that the federal government will impose a license next year, if the states do not do it.
This is a fabrication, pure and simple. The bill provides for establishment of a national registry with no fee attached, though there is the possibility of a fee in 2011.
William Hogarth, head of NMFS, said the registry can be done through the regular NMFS budget process without cost to anglers.
Some recreational fishermen say a saltwater fishing license is inevitable; so anglers might as well give in now. We can imagine the fellows on Bunker Hill saying, "We might as well surrender now, the British regulars are going to beat us anyhow."
What the saltwater license drum beaters should do is refocus on the real problems in saltwater fishing with the resources and energy that they have, not worry about gouging anglers with another tax.
The ASA, for example, should forget its lofty rhetoric and help the East Coast saltwater fisherman survive. The organization did not testify on behalf of beleaguered winter flounder or blackfish anglers when their recreational opportunities were being stripped away. It did nothing to help fluke anglers, weakfish fishermen or sea bass fishermen.
Some of the same organizations that want to regulate and tax anglers stand idly by while foreign nations decimate the bluefin tuna stocks. They did nothing to help unorganized U.S. tuna anglers fight the destruction of a bluefin fishery that was once the mainstay of the charter boat industry in the Mid-Atlantic Bight.
They did nothing to oppose the imposition of a highly migratory species permit of $22 a year for which recreational fishermen get absolutely nothing.
Recreational fishing opportunity is slipping away on all sides while the dreamers hold banquets, present awards to their followers, and variously fiddle while the East Coast saltwater recreational fishery burns. An interesting social fact regarding a saltwater fishing license is that it is frequently favored by elitists, people who have money and either seek personal advantage or a self-justified ideal.
Seldom has one of these people come forward to speak for the poor, the elderly or the disabled who benefit from a free fishery. They vigorously support regulations that deprive the handicapped and underprivileged of food and enjoyment, and do it in the name of conservation.
Their credo, apparently, is: Make them buy a license and let them eat tilapia.
Why buy license when we can't keep fish?
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 02/16/07
BY JOHN GEISER
CORRESPONDENT
Some advocates of a saltwater fishing license are walking into some very sticky ground as management officials continue to tighten the regulatory noose on harvest.
Recreational fishermen are increasingly asking what they might expect to get for their money. Management officials can only point to the record: less of practically everything that swims inshore except ling, bergalls and conger eels. This is not a persuasive argument for a saltwater fishing license.
Organizations spend millions of dollars promoting dreams of an idyllic saltwater setting such as I enjoyed on Barnegat Bay with my great-grandfather catching weakfish in the 1930s. A uniformed agent boarding the boat checking for fishing licenses is not part of the dream. The American Sportfishing Association should spend anglers' money fighting a saltwater license, not supporting it. One of the wonderful things about saltwater fishing is the freedom to participate without buying a license.
Liberty — the stuff our forefathers fought for — is precious. No promises of launching ramps, research into the workings of the inner ear of the bergall, or an ocean pout in every pot are worth losing the freedom to fish without buying a license.
The pressure for a saltwater license is building all along the East Coast with Delaware, Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts all considering it. The federal government is pushing the idea from several directions.
The sales campaign is all about squeezing more money out of anglers. The recreational fishing public buys a $22 highly migratory species permit, pays a 10 percent excise tax on all fishing tackle, pays a 7 percent sales tax on all bait, tackle, boats, marine equipment and supplies, buys permits to register their boats, licenses to operate their boats, and pays marine fuel taxes.
The big echo in the saltwater fishing license hall is "dedicated." The angler shrugs, and says, "I'm for a license as long as the money is dedicated for saltwater fishing."
What does dedicated mean? Is there a serious angler anywhere who truly believes that buying a license is going to put more fluke in the sea?
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is going to continue to strangle the winter flounder angler, restrict the fluke fisherman, cut the recreational weakfish harvest, choke the blackfish angler, throttle the porgy fisherman, and suppress the sea bass angler with or without a license.
Does anyone think the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the ASMFC and the National Marine Fisheries Service would change tactics because anglers bought a saltwater fishing license?
The "dedicated" money would create more offices with more administrators, more clerks, more law enforcement personnel, more census takers, more biologists and more laboratories. If these additions are necessary, then the general public should pay for them, if not through normal budgetary funding, then through a marine fish lottery. This is a public resource, not a recreational angling resource.
Some form of a lottery or innovative fishing tournament, tied to the striped bass fishery, for instance, would bring in millions of dollars while still preserving the right to fish in salt water without buying a license.
The supporters of the "dedicated" theory should remember that this is not an exclusive environment. No amount of license money will give anglers a greater share or more say over the marine resources than environmentalists and commercial fishermen.
This is not hunting or freshwater fishing where there are no commercial brant hunters, no one buys a license to kill and sell deer or harvests stocked trout for the supermarket.
Environmentalists who cry the loudest for preservation of the marine environment and everything in it should be the first to step up with some constructive proposals to end foreign destruction of marine resources, and forget about restricting and taxing U.S. anglers.
Commercial fishermen who are increasingly vocal in support of a saltwater license for anglers should think about a "product" license for themselves with the cost passed on to consumers.
After all, the commercial fisherman fishes for the general public. That is why he gets 60 percent of the fluke quota, and can keep 14-inch fluke.
A New Jersey blackfish potter buys a $100 state license, and can set out 500 pots, fish as long as he wants, and catch as many blackfish as he can. If an angler bought a $30 license, as proposed, he would still be limited to one blackfish per day from June 1 through Nov. 14.
The biggest hoax being generated about a saltwater fishing license is that the mandate in the Magnuson-Stevens Act is that the federal government will impose a license next year, if the states do not do it.
This is a fabrication, pure and simple. The bill provides for establishment of a national registry with no fee attached, though there is the possibility of a fee in 2011.
William Hogarth, head of NMFS, said the registry can be done through the regular NMFS budget process without cost to anglers.
Some recreational fishermen say a saltwater fishing license is inevitable; so anglers might as well give in now. We can imagine the fellows on Bunker Hill saying, "We might as well surrender now, the British regulars are going to beat us anyhow."
What the saltwater license drum beaters should do is refocus on the real problems in saltwater fishing with the resources and energy that they have, not worry about gouging anglers with another tax.
The ASA, for example, should forget its lofty rhetoric and help the East Coast saltwater fisherman survive. The organization did not testify on behalf of beleaguered winter flounder or blackfish anglers when their recreational opportunities were being stripped away. It did nothing to help fluke anglers, weakfish fishermen or sea bass fishermen.
Some of the same organizations that want to regulate and tax anglers stand idly by while foreign nations decimate the bluefin tuna stocks. They did nothing to help unorganized U.S. tuna anglers fight the destruction of a bluefin fishery that was once the mainstay of the charter boat industry in the Mid-Atlantic Bight.
They did nothing to oppose the imposition of a highly migratory species permit of $22 a year for which recreational fishermen get absolutely nothing.
Recreational fishing opportunity is slipping away on all sides while the dreamers hold banquets, present awards to their followers, and variously fiddle while the East Coast saltwater recreational fishery burns. An interesting social fact regarding a saltwater fishing license is that it is frequently favored by elitists, people who have money and either seek personal advantage or a self-justified ideal.
Seldom has one of these people come forward to speak for the poor, the elderly or the disabled who benefit from a free fishery. They vigorously support regulations that deprive the handicapped and underprivileged of food and enjoyment, and do it in the name of conservation.
Their credo, apparently, is: Make them buy a license and let them eat tilapia.