Grandpa…it's still BS!!!

The coast guard license in "this issue" is really BS, I will place a wager with you that If you picked 5 guides off hand from the water who got their "coast guard" certification within in the last three years and had them take the examine right now, without any pre studying, 4 of them would most likely fail it!

I all most decided to get a coast guard license before I retired, but I figured it wasn't worth spending the additional $1000-plus dollards to get it. It would have also required me to spend a week down in Vancouver sitting behind a computer reading all the answers to the coast guards test! I did study most of the same books that the rest of them did, so I do know quite a little about what the requirements were back then. All of my younger fishing friends who are guides, all hold different degrees of coast guard licenses now. That's the way it was about 7 years ago, and I will bet you that nothing has changed in their exams since then.

Two thirds of what you are taught is "common information" for people who run the seas often. You had to learn how to read charts, plot courses, learn the different markers, buoys, whistle, lights, and learn the "rules of road" for marine waters.

So don't tell me how secure everyone is just because a person "holds" the right piece of paperwork. For your information, (as of 7 years ago) the people that "trained" you for the exams, used copies of every single coast guard test (at the time I think there were 3 different tests) and gave you the answers! That is how you were "trained" for getting you coast guard license! It's been 7 years ago, so maybe they do something different now, buy I won't bet on it. They made you learn every one of the questions on the tests so that no matter which one of the tests that they may give to you, you would already know the correct answers. They did actually show you "how to read and plot courses". Are you feeling much more secure and safer now? Now that's real seamanship that you can bet your life on …right?

Most of the training schools just make you drum through there computers, and make you answer all the tests questions until you feel that you have memorized all the correct answers. Now has that all changed? I do not know! I would like to hear from a few of our guide members, and see just how much things "have changed" in the last 7 years.

There was never any training in or on the water, it was all done on paper and computers, so feel as safe as you want to grandpa. I will take the guide who actually has "the time on the water" any day of the week compared to the guide that just hold a piece of paper that he has just paid $1000 bucks to get! If it was me, I would not go out with any guide who I though did not know the waters well that he was taking me to. I don't care how many pieces of paper he has! My life is far more important to me then a piece of paper that that says John Doe is certified. If I wanted a guide to fish the salt, I would ask around before I made my choice. And that statement comes from over 15 years of commercial fishing in the ocean.

The sea is not "a river" and they both are to be respected in their own ways. Just because a guide is a "great river guide"; it means almost nothing when he encounters the sea and all her little "tricks".

And finally, I thought you were a BIG SUPPOPRTER OF FREE INTERPRISE grandpa!!

How does that work when only a "few" people are allowed to hold special licenses that only allow a few special interests to hold? It sure seems to me that you're speaking out of the corner of your mouth sometimes. How does limiting the opportunity to purchase a charter license support that theory? How can you preach one thing, and then say that it's ok to limit a person's right to do the same kind of business for the same price? Of all people to preach ….grandpa!! Selling those charter licenses are not free enterprise, it's called a monopoly!

Oh, I forgot your golden rule! If you are holding the gold (charter license) you get to make the rules!! Like I said, it's all bull $hit and people can read between the lines on this issue.


Cowlitzfisherman