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CHANGING FISH AND GAME RULES, FEES -- matthews column-ONS -- 8jul10
Some simple changes to improve our fishing and increase participation
By JIM MATTHEWS - Outdoor News Service
A month ago, I wrote a column on the effectiveness of live bait vs. artificial lures, and how easy it was to catch a pile of fish on the right live bait. That was followed up by a piece on Slide Lake, a now-washed-away natural pond on Bear Creek that produced trophy brown trout for anglers fishing natural baits, specifically stonefly nymphs (or hellgrammites, if you’re old school). I’ve also given a couple of seminars recently on stream fishing where I spend a lot of time on natural baits and how to collect them.
All this has generated a lot of feedback from a) older guys who remember back when you could buy a lot of different, excellent fish-catching baits and how easy it was back then to catch fish, or b) younger guys who wanted information -- things like what a stonefly nymph was and where they could buy them or how to catch shad and shiners to use for bass.
Mostly, it has made a lot of us put our heads together and think about how we could accomplish a lot by making more baits easy to get again which would make it easier for more anglers to catch more fish and get more people fishing again.
THE PROBLEMS
We’ve isolated these problems:
1) The popularity of fishing is declining in California at a higher rate than perhaps anyplace in the country. Odd, we have some of the best, most-accessible fishing in the world.
2) You just about can’t buy live bait anymore, and you certainly can’t get the best baits because of Fish and Game regulations that ban certain types of bait or permit processes that make them too expensive to sell. Live bait is simply the easiest and best thing you can use to catch fish.
3) Fishing licenses are too expensive. We’re pricing people out of the sport.
THE SOLUTIONS
Legalize More Baits: There are carp, goldfish, and shiners in virtually every lake in Southern California, yet, we can’t use really cheap feeder goldfish from the aquarium section of WalMart for bass bait. Southern California bait shops don’t even carry golden shiners in this part of the state. Yet, shiners are legal in the San Joaquin Valley, and goldfish are legal on the Colorado River. So why can’t we buy shiners and goldfish for bait here? We need to legalize the use of goldfish and shiners in lower elevation waters statewide so they can be sold at bait stores.
Legalize Throw Nets: Throw nets should be legal for catching shiners, shad, and other baitfish. The wardens will howl over this because they want to be able to cite people who have throw nets because they “know” they must be using them to illegally catch too many gamefish. That’s the Chicago-Mayor-John-Daily-approach -- and his stupid handgun ban was just overturned by the Supreme Court. You don’t ban a tool because you are concerned that a small minority will use it illegally. If we did, no one would have guns, knives, baseball bats, or vehicles. Small throw nets are the best tool for catching your own minnows for bait.
Allow Expanded Bait Capture and Sales: We all get the biological reasons for not wanting to allow for transport and sales of some types of baits. There are disease and invasive species concerns. We don’t want hybridization with natives. We get all that. So allow marina operators, park concessions, and facility managers (or individuals who work with either of those entities) to trap crawdads and minnows from a lake and sell them at that lake without making a huge production out of it. Keep the regulations simple and keep the permit fee under $50. Allow individuals to trap or throw-net their own bait without a permit.
License Fees: Reduce the cost of annual fishing licenses commensurate with what our moronic governor has forced the Department of Fish and Game to hack from its budget -- figure 10 percent. That would make the annual license about $37, still too high, but a start. (And remember, the DFG’s budget for sportfishing comes from our license fees, so just where, exactly, is this dedicated-account money going that is being saved from furloughs and program cuts?) A junior license, for a kid under 21, should be $10. A senior license for someone 62 and over should be $10. Save paperwork and put those two on the same license with a box you check: senior, junior. Make all short term licenses valid for three consecutive days and sell them for $10. To save paper, put it on with the junior and senior license. That will encourage vacationers to buy licenses for their weekend trips without breaking the bank. Do away with high-priced non-resident licenses. Why should they have to pay more? Sell them the same licenses residents buy at the same price. The DFG fishing programs are funded from license fees, not taxes, let’s get more people fishing in California, even if they’re from Nevada or Arizona or Montana. Lastly, if license sales go up because of the reduced fees, reduce the general license fee again the following year, and the following year until we have 5 million anglers in this state and we get all our federal excise tax funding (we currently receive less than half our entitlement because we have so few anglers).
THE BENEFITS
These simple changes would be good for fishing and the stat’s economy. Bait can make good fishing more likely, and we could easily double the number of anglers fishing in this state if they caught fish and it wasn’t so expensive. Even with the reduced license fees I’m talking about, that would mean more direct license revenue for the DFG and more federal excise dollars. But more than that, increased bait sales across the fishing landscape will generate more jobs. I guarantee you that most marinas and concessions would invest in the staff and gear needed to trap and sell crawdads and minnows from their lakes -- if the permit didn’t cost $2,000 and they didn’t have a monster paperwork nightmare. Add in sales of throw nets (I’d buy one tomorrow), fishing gear, and all the related expenses on a fishing trip, and you are starting a wave that can get big.
My old friend, Mike McBride, a retired DFG warden captain, wanted to try to change the bait laws as warden, and I think Mike is the perfect guy to lead this charge to make sensible bait regulation changes with his old agency and Fish and Game Commission. With our help, of course.
Sonke Mastrup, a DFG deputy director in Sacramento, is a career state employee who knows intimately how each fee increase shaves off more anglers from the roles, guys who finally just say, “that’s just too expensive” and give up the sport. He’s the ideal guy to push the governor’s office to implement the license fee “rebate” with the money the furloughs and department cuts are saving. It really would be the governor’s only “legal” way to use these savings and it would be a PR victory for him.
And you and I can write to the Fish and Game Commission and suggest the bait and throw-net changes, too. We can write our legislators to encourage the license “rebate.” It’s time we started growing recreational fishing again, instead of watching its demise. These are practical, baby steps that could have big impacts.
Some simple changes to improve our fishing and increase participation
By JIM MATTHEWS - Outdoor News Service
A month ago, I wrote a column on the effectiveness of live bait vs. artificial lures, and how easy it was to catch a pile of fish on the right live bait. That was followed up by a piece on Slide Lake, a now-washed-away natural pond on Bear Creek that produced trophy brown trout for anglers fishing natural baits, specifically stonefly nymphs (or hellgrammites, if you’re old school). I’ve also given a couple of seminars recently on stream fishing where I spend a lot of time on natural baits and how to collect them.
All this has generated a lot of feedback from a) older guys who remember back when you could buy a lot of different, excellent fish-catching baits and how easy it was back then to catch fish, or b) younger guys who wanted information -- things like what a stonefly nymph was and where they could buy them or how to catch shad and shiners to use for bass.
Mostly, it has made a lot of us put our heads together and think about how we could accomplish a lot by making more baits easy to get again which would make it easier for more anglers to catch more fish and get more people fishing again.
THE PROBLEMS
We’ve isolated these problems:
1) The popularity of fishing is declining in California at a higher rate than perhaps anyplace in the country. Odd, we have some of the best, most-accessible fishing in the world.
2) You just about can’t buy live bait anymore, and you certainly can’t get the best baits because of Fish and Game regulations that ban certain types of bait or permit processes that make them too expensive to sell. Live bait is simply the easiest and best thing you can use to catch fish.
3) Fishing licenses are too expensive. We’re pricing people out of the sport.
THE SOLUTIONS
Legalize More Baits: There are carp, goldfish, and shiners in virtually every lake in Southern California, yet, we can’t use really cheap feeder goldfish from the aquarium section of WalMart for bass bait. Southern California bait shops don’t even carry golden shiners in this part of the state. Yet, shiners are legal in the San Joaquin Valley, and goldfish are legal on the Colorado River. So why can’t we buy shiners and goldfish for bait here? We need to legalize the use of goldfish and shiners in lower elevation waters statewide so they can be sold at bait stores.
Legalize Throw Nets: Throw nets should be legal for catching shiners, shad, and other baitfish. The wardens will howl over this because they want to be able to cite people who have throw nets because they “know” they must be using them to illegally catch too many gamefish. That’s the Chicago-Mayor-John-Daily-approach -- and his stupid handgun ban was just overturned by the Supreme Court. You don’t ban a tool because you are concerned that a small minority will use it illegally. If we did, no one would have guns, knives, baseball bats, or vehicles. Small throw nets are the best tool for catching your own minnows for bait.
Allow Expanded Bait Capture and Sales: We all get the biological reasons for not wanting to allow for transport and sales of some types of baits. There are disease and invasive species concerns. We don’t want hybridization with natives. We get all that. So allow marina operators, park concessions, and facility managers (or individuals who work with either of those entities) to trap crawdads and minnows from a lake and sell them at that lake without making a huge production out of it. Keep the regulations simple and keep the permit fee under $50. Allow individuals to trap or throw-net their own bait without a permit.
License Fees: Reduce the cost of annual fishing licenses commensurate with what our moronic governor has forced the Department of Fish and Game to hack from its budget -- figure 10 percent. That would make the annual license about $37, still too high, but a start. (And remember, the DFG’s budget for sportfishing comes from our license fees, so just where, exactly, is this dedicated-account money going that is being saved from furloughs and program cuts?) A junior license, for a kid under 21, should be $10. A senior license for someone 62 and over should be $10. Save paperwork and put those two on the same license with a box you check: senior, junior. Make all short term licenses valid for three consecutive days and sell them for $10. To save paper, put it on with the junior and senior license. That will encourage vacationers to buy licenses for their weekend trips without breaking the bank. Do away with high-priced non-resident licenses. Why should they have to pay more? Sell them the same licenses residents buy at the same price. The DFG fishing programs are funded from license fees, not taxes, let’s get more people fishing in California, even if they’re from Nevada or Arizona or Montana. Lastly, if license sales go up because of the reduced fees, reduce the general license fee again the following year, and the following year until we have 5 million anglers in this state and we get all our federal excise tax funding (we currently receive less than half our entitlement because we have so few anglers).
THE BENEFITS
These simple changes would be good for fishing and the stat’s economy. Bait can make good fishing more likely, and we could easily double the number of anglers fishing in this state if they caught fish and it wasn’t so expensive. Even with the reduced license fees I’m talking about, that would mean more direct license revenue for the DFG and more federal excise dollars. But more than that, increased bait sales across the fishing landscape will generate more jobs. I guarantee you that most marinas and concessions would invest in the staff and gear needed to trap and sell crawdads and minnows from their lakes -- if the permit didn’t cost $2,000 and they didn’t have a monster paperwork nightmare. Add in sales of throw nets (I’d buy one tomorrow), fishing gear, and all the related expenses on a fishing trip, and you are starting a wave that can get big.
My old friend, Mike McBride, a retired DFG warden captain, wanted to try to change the bait laws as warden, and I think Mike is the perfect guy to lead this charge to make sensible bait regulation changes with his old agency and Fish and Game Commission. With our help, of course.
Sonke Mastrup, a DFG deputy director in Sacramento, is a career state employee who knows intimately how each fee increase shaves off more anglers from the roles, guys who finally just say, “that’s just too expensive” and give up the sport. He’s the ideal guy to push the governor’s office to implement the license fee “rebate” with the money the furloughs and department cuts are saving. It really would be the governor’s only “legal” way to use these savings and it would be a PR victory for him.
And you and I can write to the Fish and Game Commission and suggest the bait and throw-net changes, too. We can write our legislators to encourage the license “rebate.” It’s time we started growing recreational fishing again, instead of watching its demise. These are practical, baby steps that could have big impacts.
