Nailed it salmo. Especially the last two paragraphs.
I've lived in Washington my whole life along with many others here.
We have seen our tax and license money do nothing to help our local fisheries.
I'm with you salmo. The state is not scratching our backs why should we fund them.
If they raise license fees and we loose fisheries, I will sell all my salmon/steel gear. I got way more pride than that. As much as I love to fish, I will not help fund an agency that is not in it for the people that like you said helps fund about 98%.
You guys can give me grief. I will still have my pride and not be pushed over.
It could not have been illustrated better Salmo. However, let me play devils advocate for just a moment.
As eloquent as your argument is, unless there is a paradigm shift in the mindset of the recreational fishing community, where it is believed that "some fishing is better than no fishing", you are yelling in the wilderness. I would imagine it will not be long, before one of these short sited thinkers will post a reply to you that reads something like:
"Go ahead, stop fishing. Leaves more for me."
I don't know what it will take, but we are being killed off slowly and methodically, like the analogy of boiling a frog. And unfortunately, too many guys are so busy trying to catch the last fish, they don't see the mountain disappearing a pebble at a time.