[JohnR]

I'm a little short on time so I can't address this the way I want to.

I have not read the article yet so I can't go into detail on that but I can assume a few things from this post. Sounds like Steve went pretty detailed on spots, that is a shame, his spots or someone else's, its a shame. Someone is going to lose access and someone is going to suffer.

But while you are trashing Steve McKenna now, I guess you need to trash everyone else that talks spots too. So let's all throw Joe Lyons and Dave Pickering under the bus, Canalman, Powers, Flaptail, looks like Zeno has some spot embers coming soon, ooops Charlie Soares has diarrhea of the mouth lately, #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& did a few in 5-6 years ago, Daignault - the original mass torch, wrote a book and made $$ by coopting others to burn THEIR spots, Tim Coleman (Sbass - TC is one of the good guys), Bassmaster, Mike P, et all.

Now, when you are done, go blame the Bait and Tackle shops too. I think Captain Don's has sent more people to Q in the past few years than any other source. Ballstons - what shop does not say "Balstons"????

Now that we are done crying, maybe we should address the root of the problem? PEOPLE WANT SPOTS!!! New people, old people, where are the fish at?? This is an over-generalization but you know what makes profit for fishing maggies? Boat and boat / fishing related advertisements, you know what makes people buy the maggies so they can sell the add space? SPOTS!!!!!!

I have talked to a few people (probably not who you think) that write articles for our two heroic local SW periodicals. There are more and more encouraged to write about SPOTS. Sure, give me a How-To, but be sure to add the where-to. SPOTS SELL! Sells magazines, sells books, sells website traffic. SPOTS SELL!!!!

People follow trucks to see where they are fishing because of SPOTS. It's all about SPOTS. Some of the nicest people turn into the shrewdest scum beacause of SPOTS.

What is the negative ramification of all this spot talk? ACCESS IS FOREVER LOST!!!! When a bunch of people park at X and leave trash, make noise, talk loudly at 3 in the morning, we put undue pressure on spots. It is only worse when it is on OTW or NEF just in time for the Friday crowd. And even some of the "smart sticks" from here make more noise than a heard of holsteins with their bells on. Trash, people, noise, disrespect - these are all eroding at our access. But it gets worse when things are concentrated because of an article in the maggie, or a thread on the 'Net.

You want to do something about it? Form a Coalition to stop spot diarrhea of the mouth. Tell the maggies to stop talking spots and encouraging, or practically demanding spot info in the articles. It is the CULTURE that needs to change.

But don't be a complete hypocrate and bash when odds are you have sucked up to people for spots or waited with foaming mouth for NEF or OTW to hit your mailbox and make that magical flight up into the library. Do something about the root of the problem and tell Bourque and Harvey to be far less descriptive on publishing specific locales. Or better yet, invite Gene and Zach to a lot of these spots when the floodgates open.