Here in Wyoming we are being nickle and dimed to death with the latest being a required invasive species decal on any boat longer than 10 ft or so. :mad:
That means my sit on top kayak, my Pontoon boat and my car topper Gheenoe all have to have the decal.:?: were they a foot or two shorter they wouldn’t but in it’s infinite wisdom Wyoming Fish and Game saw fit to write it this way??? They charge an extra five bucks if you even use an electric motor and they do have to be registered if you use that motor.:? I wouldn’t mind if we really had a problem or possible problem with invasive species but to date that’s not the case. For one thing, here in Wyoming our reservoirs are just that and since the irrigators own the water they fluctate wildly much more than the twelve feet or so the Zebra and Quagga Muscles need for survival as I understand it. This is a several times annually thing and effectively kills much of our warm water fishing (spawning requirements and flow) as well as some cold water species also. Besides that here in this state we likely have dozen or more wade fishermen using felt soled waders to every boater so again I have to conclude that this state is greedy, ignorant or both!
In the not too distant past just the Fed Govt required registration if you used your boat on any water under their jurisdiction such as tidewaters, navigable rivers, national Rec areas, etc. Then it slowly started spreading:shock: as states saw an opportunity to soak willing sportsmen and women. I checked into it 15 years ago or so, with the U S Coast Guard, which was the office of primary responsibility originally for the regulation and they laughed when I told them I’d been ticketed by an overzealous County Sheriff on the Tillamook for running a small Jon Boat using the smallest of electric motors. The Coast Guard officer in charge pointed out that the reg was originally written for motorized craft such as those big ships, etc that use Elec thrusters, etc. :roll:
The original state regs requiring boat registration were fairly reasonable and were designed to add a bit of extra money to be used for boat ramps, wake damaged shorelines and docks, enforcement and other big boat use problems, but most certainly not for car toppers, poontoon boats, canoes, etc. This latest nonsense is strictly greed and building a bigger bureaucracy.
I do not mind at all when my sportsman dollars are being used appropriately but this latest rash of nonsense, in my mind, has me steamed! What say you is this a good or bad trend and what might be done about it? I have talked about this and the apparent problems with these regulations as high as the second in charge here with Wyoming Fish & Game to no avail. Any suggestions?
What’s really silly, Chuck, is the way the different states interpret the “invasive threat” differently. In Colorado, they don’t sell a sticker, but trailered boats have to be inspected entering and leaving every reservoir, every time. So if your pontoon is in the bed, or your canoe on the roof, breeze right past. But if you’ve towed it there on a trailer, you have to wait in line for the inspection. For the life of me, I can’t imagine how a $5 sticker (or whatever they cost) could keep the mussels off the boat. But, then, paying some retired doofus (like me) $6 an hour to inspect boats for mussels too small for the naked eye doesn’t seem much better.
I agree that forcing rec boaters to register and label their boats is taking a valid idea and abusing it for the sake of revenue. Especially if that rec boat is a canoe, pontoon, kayak, etc. But at least the money (in Colo) goes to the Parks and Wildlife guys for access and ramps. Who gets it up there in Windyland?
Ha! A few weeks ago I went on a picture taking expedition with my neighbor. We needed 4 or 5 permits and maybe more to access the areas we visited. One called a Discovery Pass, some sort of trail use permit and a SnoPark permit. There could have been more like a parking permit and I think we needed some sort of National Forest access permit too. Jeez, we were only taking pictures. The goverment is charging us up the nose to use our own land. What the hell?
“I would pay for the decal if I was confident that the $$$ was going to preventing invasive species.” That says it all for sure. Here as in many places now we are stuck with a bureaucracy that has lost touch with providing a service for dollars collected :xand that goes for both the Invasive Species Stickers and Registering Car Toppers, etc!!!:roll:
This is on public land? Man I thought the States was the land of the free! I cant believe you guys let them get away with locking up public land and demanding fees and permits to access your own land. I could see a parking permit being fair but anything else is robbery.
All the best.
Mike
Our goverments are broke. The first things to get cut in the budgets are parks and public lands. To keep the parks and public lands open they resort to permits and user fees. I don’t mind paying a fee if it helps keep roads, trails, campgrounds and such open for public use but I do wish they could condense all the permits down to 1 or 2 instead of 5 or 6.
Here, in some jurisdictions we have to be inspected, but not all jurisdictions recognize each others inspection process. So you could end up with multiple inspections over the course of a few days, as you move from one water in the state to the next. You can also be on one lake that requires an inspection, but the lake below it ( that catches it releases ) you don’t need an inspection at all. That lake then dumps into one of our most noteworthy trout rivers. That lower lake is also the first lake you come to, if you are traveling in from an east bound state - without ever having encountered an inspection station…and on top of that, if you’ve got an inspection sticker on your vessels from some lakes in California or if you’re registration is from the wrong zip code, you aren’t allowed to launch in certain other lakes, new inspection or not - your vessel is persona non grata.
As far as the trolling motor on small craft tag, we’ve been on the hook for that for decades. That hasn’t anything to do with the current financial problems in this state.
I look at it this way, I wear rubber soles with cleats, I dry my gear between moves, I tie all my flies on barbless hooks, I get my vessels inspected willingly, pay my taxes, I workout regularly, eat right, pray and so far none of that has kept the good state of California out of my pockets.
Now if I could just get someone to form a super pact to fund my fishing lifestyle, all would be right with the world.
Dave
Remember folks, we are talking about, local, state and federal governments here, LOGIC is out the window and has no place in these equations. Sorry state of affairs but governments have become a huge monster and our politians have taxed and fee-ed us beyond belief. Every government wants their share and more of our dollars. Logic, there is none and I’m afraid it will not get any better. Y’all take care, John.
I would rather add $10 to the couple thousand I spend on fishing each year than have a reservoir ecosystem irrevocably altered by the introduction of something nasty. And for those who think it doesn’t really hurt if another species or two gets added, I would like to point out that during the Christmas Bird Count around here, roughly HALF of the birds counted were exotic species. One of every two birds in the area. Makes you wonder what might have been here if they weren’t.
a) The State of Wyoming has a program to prevent the spread of invasive species in the state’s waters. (Seems like it would be irresponsible not to.)
b) They can fund these efforts by taxing all the citizens of the state, or… by imposing a fee on the people who actually might have a hand in spreading the invasive species. (So that’s what they have chosen to do.)
I’m not sure I see a logic failure in this. (Although I understand the feeling of being nickel and dimed.) I do notice that as part of Wyoming G&Fs ongoing gouge-a-greenie program, the fee for out-of-staters is 3 times the fee for state residents.
And as a data point for Wyomingoids, as a Colorado resident, it cost me $35 to register my 8ft pontoon boat with 36 pound trolling motor in the state of Colorado.
Does your Colorado reservoirs keep water in them? Here the decals were for preventing Zebra and Quagga mussles and that’s all according to the deputy Chief at Wyo F&Game. Our reservoirs do not keep stable levels of water in them as our water belongs to primarily Nebraska and a bunch of instate irrigators that use it at will and drain the reservoirs on an annual or more often basis. You are close enough so come on up and take a look at the big reservoir right out of Wheatland, and then come back during the late fall, you’ll see it’s almost disappeared! So if there’s little to no danger for invasive infestation why have the stickers??? That was primarily my point! I can see a couple big fairly stable reservoirs requiring protection but here in this state there’s no more than a handful at most that will fall into this category! That plus why tax some, the boaters, when you are missing the biggest bunch of users, ie the wade anglers? Of course there is a one word reply. Bureaucracy! A typical reservoir is just above us in the mountains, Turpin, last year and most every year they drop it 20 ft plus, almost draining it! Far too much too allow any kind of niche where the invasive Quaggas and Zebras can start growing…
Well, I don’t know if Wyoming is immune to invasive species, but I do know that you guys are getting off pretty easy when it comes to taxes and fees in general. (But I agree that whatever you pay, you should feel like it goes to a good purpose.) It could be worse, Colorado DOW added a buck to everyone’s license a few years ago so they could run TV ads promoting themselves.
Thanks for those maps. I had seen them before but didn’t book mark them. As I said nada for Wyoming and that can be easily explained as Colorado has much better record for keeping their water; for not drawing down reservoirs to the muddy water hole levels for instate or other irrigators; and for attracting folks from out of state to join the many anglers that use boats and fish your waters. I’ve lived in both states and it’s day and night!
I don’t know what CO reservoirs you are thinking of, but the ones I am familiar with have a lot of drawdown each year. And we do inspections on the ones most used by motorboats. And have even mountain lakes posted with ANS signs to educate boaters and anglers.
No kidding! When I lived there, Colorado Springs, I seldom saw any reservoirs drawn down as they are here but apparently that has changed for the worse. I’ve heard for several years now that the situation was actually improving in Colorado due to instream flow, etc regulations, but apparently this isn’t the case. I suppose then that the big difference then must be the large amount of use your reservoirs get by out pof state boaters? Last I heard Colorado is spending around $4M on this program while Wyoming is pushing $1 M annually.
Wyoming is the 10th largest state with the lowest number of residents of any state. I did a little quick research and math; I live in Gwinnett County, GA, the second most populous county in the state. Wyoming has approximately 70% of the population and 224 times the area of this county. There has to be a certain amount of mixed cost to operating a state government that is there regardless of population, roads, etc. The temptation to take a good cause and use it to collect fees from citizens is hard for a politician to let slip away, unless it is going to prevent them from being re-elected. I suspect someone saw the issue, maybe a really concerned official, and suddenly someone saw it as an opportunity to create revenue.
I think you have a shade of gray, maybe a dark shade, but there are probably some good intentions and some greed for the money of the fisherman. Everyone knows fly fishermen are all millionaires; did you ever look at what they pay for rods and reels? (Intended as sarcasm)
Here as in many places now we are stuck with a bureaucracy that has lost touch with providing a service for dollars collected :xand that goes for both the Invasive Species Stickers and Registering Car Toppers, etc!!!:roll: