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Rather than an insidious NOAA/state collusion to increase license fees, I wonder if this is a clumsy attempt to get an idea how dedicated or devoted a fisherman the person answering the survey is. They might postulate that someone who would not pay fifty bucks for a license is not that committed to the sport.
I could easily see someone at NOAA with a commercial bias turning this around and using it as an argument that the recreational community does not value the resource enough to even shell out 55 bucks for the chance to fish.
Or it could be used as "data" (which it hardly deserves to be called) to show states that high license fees would be counter-productive and reduce participation excessively.
All I know is that if I had to I would pay $55 and get on with it. I already pay way more than that for stupid things like trailer registration, mooring registration, excise taxes. Hell, I pay $30 for a freshwater license and use it about 3 x a season.
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