Saturday, June 14, 2008

Saltwater fishing license, it's about time

There's one basic problem that undermines good fishing management of many fish...we can't even count the number of recreational fishermen. For fish that are mostly caught by recreational fishermen, this is a huge problem.

Finally, federal fishery managers have proposed a solution, a recreational fishing license for saltwater fishing. It's about time.

There are a lot of arguments out there about why the licenses are a bad idea, but they're basically crap. The smart recreational fishing voices support the license and explain why.

Counting fishermen and the fish that they catch is step one in good fishery management. It's about time we have a recreational fishing license requirement for the ocean, so we can bring recreational fishing management into the modern era.

1 comment:

David J. Hirsh said...

Can you tell I am catching up on my favorite blogs, Mark? Nothing like commenting on an old post. As a Washington fisher and ocean user, it surprised me to learn that there were coastal states that don't license the salt. I just thought everyone was as assiduous as Washington in licensing and then accounting for the catch of saltwater fishers. Makes you wonder waht those Atlantic States are thinking?