In my humble opinion we (fishers and members of the sportfishing industy) are at times our own worst enemy.

One, too many of us are unwilling to get off our arses and do something.... write a letter, make a phone call, have a discussion with a local or non local elected official, etc.

Secondly, and this one is really starting to fry my fritter, is this notion that has been succesfully generated by the property rights folks that if one talks of or encourages habitat restoration over hatcheries or even in conjunciton with hatcheries then one is a "#&%@& enviro-wacko" (thank you Rush..) and you can't agree with no dang enviro-wacko, don't you know!?!?!?

I spend practicaly every working day of my life in a tackle store or department and hear it constantly.

Our own forces are so ignorant (no offense intended, many don't make this like a religion as I do, they simply don't have knowledge of the issue)that they are pulling for the other side!

Like it or don't, our ranks are made up of a lot of rednecks that are ignorant to the facts and have no desire to learn them.

How do you think a small group of people were able to take a home video and end up with such a dramatic change in outlook concerning the Endangered Species Act?

This was not a rapid, huge uprising of masses of people. No, this was a small group of very vocal people that went out and got a lot of grass roots support from a large pool of people that are anxious as hell to do away with the ESA and any habitat protection or restoration it may prompt.

Sad part is, many of these same people are fishers and some are even in the industry but have been fooled into believing that we can do just fine having the state or feds. supply us with fish for eternity.

Sadder yet is that these same conservative republicans will tell you we should make government smaller, stop the subsidies and welfare and keep government out of our lives....... unless the governmnet is going to be our sole provider of fish in the rivers, then that is ok.

We have our work cut out for us folks but we can't stop our efforts.