Hey Y'all:
Uhh... I useta be a rock star back in the uh 60's, man..... but nobody wasted time waving a lighter... D*** I miss those days. I guess it helps explain my memory loss, somewhat...
Yeah about the fish. I think we're losing the battle, and maybe the war too. No agency, even those who are charged with accounting for, and fair allocation of the resources is truly fulfilling their duties. The information is being spun in the back room before being released to the lay public. Us.
The issues are way too sensitive for the great unwashed masses(us) to cope with, so State and Federal agencies are spoonfeeding processed bites of data as they see fit, probably mostly to protect their own individual and agencys' a@#es.
Why would no itemized harvest records be offered to the public??? If the public saw the tribal harvest, commercial harvest, sport harvest, hatchery intake, for a given watershed and a given species all together, and started comparing "harvests", we'd revolt. Quit buying licenses, etc, maybe even all get together and got to Olympia (or DC) to make our voices heard. Just imagine a "million fisherman march"....Locke, Koenig and Associates would have to leave town or hide under their desks. Or something.
But here we are; sport fishermen, not a really cohesive or organized group. No real voice, and as individuals on the riverbank, an easy target, and easily deprived of our rights. AND the bottom of the food chain. Every larger entity feeds on us. Gear & tackle manufacturers, boat makers, government agencies, court systems, hospitality industries, all get their piece of our pocketbooks.
So, in terms of agency protection and participation, why are we not getting what we're paying for??? To date, no-one in the private sector has raised a loud enough ruckus for the loftier levels of government to hear. Maybe its time to change that...
This is starting to sound just like the 60's again man...... Pass that over here....