I made a last minute decision to go to this meeting this morning. I have no illusions that anything momentous will happen, and even though money is the only thing that will ultimately make a real difference, change starts with a clear, unified message, and enough of us need to deliver that message to make it stick with the commissioners. Then, it gets serious.

I agree that it will take money to make real headway, and for sure, we have plenty of it to kick some serious butt. The trouble is people often won't part with their money without assurance that money will be used to fight for their pet issues, and God knows it's hard to find a handful of us that agree on what those should be. Still, I think we just need a small change of perspective. If each of us put even 50% of what he/she spends on a license aside as a "fight for our fisheries fund" (how's that for alliteration with a purpose?), we'd have a solid litigation fund. It takes a lot of money, but there's a lot of us, which means a little goes a long way.

Of course, the next problem is organizing and administering that fund. Absent any single person we all agree should be our collective voice, practically speaking, our best vehicle is conservation and advocacy groups. CCA and PSA have joined forces on several pressing issues, and that's a great place to start. Give them some of your money (it really doesn't have to be a lot) and see what they can do.