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Originally Posted by JohnR
Elitism has nothing to do with this - it is ACCESS. It is what we will lose. Spots are meant to be shared, how and where is meant to be shared. But shared among PEOPLE not the internet or a magazine or a book. When you read an article about fishing such and such a place, do they tell you to park here but watch out for this? Or be real quiet going down that street? Or don't put your korkers on until you are there? That stuff about spots is not in the article, it is shared by friends or fellow anglers and it is remembered.
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John,
I have to respectufully disagee. As far as access goes, here in RI we have CONSTITUIONAL right of access to the water. We have PUBLIC rights of way that are open to everyone, to access the water. We have DEM maintined parking and accessways. I trust the DEM and RISSA's Access Committee to fight for an maintain the public's right of access to the water.
If some members are concrerned that littering might shut doen access at certain locations, nothing is preventing them or their club from putting trash recepticals at those spots and emptying them and maintaining them. Bringing out more trash than you bring is is 1000% more helpful in maintaining access than trashing some writer or magazine that has the temerity to inform the readers.
What I see here is the desire of a few, in the know fishermen, to keep the great unwashed away from their favorite spots. That's why I call it elitism, the in-the-know fishermen against all of the other fishermen. The few trying to keep the many away from a public resource, and in the ling run I think it will prove to be counterproductive.
If the vast majority of fishermen or would be fishermen can't find out where these "spots" are, they will be much less motivated to get involved when the legislature cuts the DEM's funding which is used to keep these access points open. Why should they care if a "spot" is closed down, if they can't get there anyway?
As far as writers and magazines go, first of all let me give eveyone else some perspective. yes I write for seveal magazines, but I don't write about surf fishing. Yes, when I do my weekly reports I will name a "spot" if a tackle shop owner tells me that's where the fish are being caught. But I don't tell people any morre than that's where the fish were caught. All my feature articles deal with boat fishing (that may change due to the input I got from this site in an earlier thread). But I understand where the magazines and writers are coming from. People read the magazines to become better informed about fishing. The where to/how to article has existed and will continue to exist to fill that need. Its what the readers want, that is the vast majority of readers who are attempting to become better fishermen. Yes there are other ways to get the same knowledge, but in today's society a lot of the information comes in the form of reading, and the magazines and their writers fill that need by a large segment of the fishing and wanna be fishermen public.
The more fishermen there are the more funding we can get for keeping access and even expanding it. The more fishermen there are the more we can fight for better fishing regulations. Two things give any interest group power in our society, votes and money. The seaside landowners have us all beat when it comes to money. So the only way we can beat them and keep our sport alive is with more votes, and the only way we can get more votes is by expanding the numbers of fishermen. We can't do that, at leasrt for very long, if no one will tell them where they can fish.