Wisconsin’s Conservation Congress public hearings were held last night. One of the issues discussed was changing the current 5 tier system of trout regulations, tailored stream by stream to account for fish and angler populations to a statewide 3 kill, 7 inch minimum.
It was way too close. 35 counties for and 37 against.
Letting the DNR set the regulations based on science and public input has resulted in improved population and size of trout. Some arguments against the 5 tier system were that it was all too complicated and discouraged young people from fishing.
My feeling is that science should speak first. The numbers don’t show a reduction of fish or anglers, either. In fact the trout regs have worked so well that a multi tier system has been implemented for other game fish.
If you ask landownders along one of my favorite rivers, they’d probably say there are too many anglers. I also feel that kids are staying inside for a multitude of reasons and not just in Wisconsin. Certainly not just because of the regs. And you only have to memorize the regs for the body of water you’re fishing on, not the whole state. How complicated is that?
A one size fits all regulation would actually decrease the number of fish you could keep in some streams, while allowing kill on current catch and release only sections.
It bugs me that people would pull the kid card, arguing to keep more fish for themselves now and muddying the future of trout for these same kids.
I know what you mean about that “kid card”. There was a Committee Hearing at the State House here in Maine to test the waters for a bill which would exempt all kids 17 and under from ANY regulation. My students wrote letters on their own and I went down to testify. I told them that its hard to teach kids that laws are based on science and the best thoughts of legislators, that to exempt kids says that Law in general does not apply to them, that law is arbitrary, and that kids are too dumb to go by laws. I wasn’t the only one. It didn’t make it out of Committee.
Trouble is, its hard to get time off work to keep tabs on these things.
There was one fellow I spoke to after the meeting who said the DNR would be arresting kids for keeping fish with all these complicated rules. I looked over my shoulder at the Conservation Officer standing nearby and asked “You arrest many kids, Brad?”
“Nope,” he said. And that was the end of that. I told the fellow that dumbing down the rules wasn’t the way to get kids fishing, taking them out to fish was the way. After you take away their XBox.