Speak Your Mind!

Speaking of Maine (link here). This place has a special place in many of the blog authors’ hearts. And for good reason. It is a pretty spectacular place. If you have ever been there you know that it is a special place worth keeping special. As a group, we anglers, have a lot of opinions about a lot of things, like how special a place is…

Which is why you should comment on Maine’s 2021-2035 Statewide Fisheries Management Plan.

Even if you haven’t been to Maine, if you care about how the fishery is managed for posterity and hopefully for you as you eventually get up there and have a trip of a lifetime.

I highly suggest you go to website linked above and read the executive summaries they have linked with pdfs on the website. They layout the goals and strategies for achieving in the coming decade.

While we are talking about it, maybe peruse through MassWildlife’s calendar and find a Fisheries and Wildlife Board meeting to sit in on with zoom and make sure your local waters and uplands are being managed well.

And just one last thing, I know we are likely all tired of politics and all the B.S. that comes with that. But consider calling your representative and letting you know that wild lands and waters are important to you. And thus their management is of importance too.

Items to consider letting them know should be considered for passing into law:

  • The North American Grasslands Conservation Act: it will help with restore grasslands and protect them so less land is lost to development and frankly washed down into rivers across the country
  • Recovering America’s Wildlife Act: this bill helps under-funded agencies like almost all game and fish agencies and national forests and such get the funding to protect ALL species of wildlife above and below the waterline.
  • Here’s a random one for ya, but a personal pet peeve of mine: the so called Backpack Tax. I want one and you should too. We as anglers and hunters put billions into conservation through a built in tax mechanism which has been wildly successful for conservation with little to no detriment to us. The folks that making camping equipment and hiking clothes and stuff like that don’t put into that pool of money. In fact they actively lobby against legislation that would see them contribute meaningfully to conservation. Even after that, they feel entitled to have a seat at the conservation table. I want them there in all honesty, but I also want them bringing something more than a bag a chips to the conservation potluck. It is a tricky and complicated thing, but in all reality it’s pretty simple, corporations don’t want to pony up. Let your representative know that you want other outdoor users to help more substantially with conservation.

All right. Thanks for the attention if you made it this far. If ya have any questions about this crap, hit me up. I understand that not all y’all will agree with my positions but I think you should voice your opinion to the powers that be all the same. Cheers folks and here’s a picture of a pretty fish for your efforts!

217 views

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *