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Posts: 32
| Check out the baloney the Army Corps of Engineers is pulling with anglers.
Everyone needs to keep aware of this development. This is federal water that we, taxpayers, paid for and continue to pay for.
This is just another incremental way we as anglers are losing access rights. We need to start working in unison and not as separate bass, walleye, muskie, trout and any other groups. We have an estimated 60 million anglers in this country according to the ASA. Thats about 20 percent of the population.
It's time we start to make our voices heard loud and clear again. This incremental erosion of our rights and or access will be our downfall. We don't even notice it happening.
Here's the article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/conservation/news/sto...
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Posts: 21
Location: Wallingford, KY | Not surprising at all. I just wonder how many hundred dollar hand shakes happened before and after the meetings. I would post and contact all anglers on the lakes I could and tell them to not stop for fuel, food, bait or anything else at these marinas. I'm also sure there are many tournaments (small and large) held at these lakes. I would let the people that run these tournaments know of the dealings that have been done. Granted the pleasure boat industry is a big business, but I doubt they can hang with the dedicated anglers and sportsmen. Just my food for thought.
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Posts: 2361
| Good luck with all that. I have fished the KY lakes and they not only have extended the areas of no fishing, which were not in existance when I first started fishing down here, but they have also run out no wake bouys all the way across the lake so that it take an extra 5 minutes to get up lake down lake past the marinas which are a private resource and in my opinion opportunities to print money. Most of them are so fat, they don't even care about anybody out on the lake, they are already making their bundle. If there was any free market competition involved in the marina business you would quickly see a change in their attitudes and their service. Unfortunately for the anglers, most of these involve mini monopolies and I fear they do have some type of barter going on with politicians and public employees, cash or trade.
I will make one additional comment, out of the lakes I fish, the Buckhorn lake marina is the only one that I feel really provides much of a service to the everyday angler.
Edited by firstsixfeet 12/18/2008 7:11 PM
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Posts: 221
Location: Detroint Lakes, MN |
Marina's are using public property to not only make a profit, but to store private things (the docks, boats etc.).
I don't get it, how can someone take over acearage on public water and make it their own money pit??
Nobody has the right to use public waters in a way that prohibits other from using them on a daily basis.
Until the citizens unite against the theft of public property it will not stop.
JS |
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Posts: 32
| I had Chris Horton from BASS on our radio show last night.
This situation and ruling sets precedence for the Army Corps to ban some anglers’ rights and deny some access on all of the federal waterways they manage.
Remember, the bodies of water at issue in the article are those on the White River that many of us fish or have fished, Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Norfork, etc.
What was suggested is to contact your local congressman for the region of the state you live in. You can find them at www.house.gov. Copy and paste the article and the letter Chris Horton wrote (it's a link in the article), along with your opinion, and send it to them.
As a group anglers need to start paying much closer attention to what is going on locally, regionally and nationally. We let things like this fall through the cracks and we'll have a massive uphill battle. Especially once it becomes accepted practice by the Federal authorities. |
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Posts: 3910
| "We let things like this fall through the cracks and we'll have a massive uphill battle. Especially once it becomes accepted practice by the Federal authorities."
Right on, Dave, as are the other comments above. Along a similar line, the current administration in DC is preparing to auction drilling/pumping rights on some of our most beautiful and pristene public lands out west.
Some years ago I served as a Board Member on some Chamber of Commerces, Economic Development Committees, etc. I think I was lucky to participate with the particular folks on these committees because they had a terrific sense that local prosperity meant finding a balance between community development and protection of our natural resources.
The main two points I want to make here are, first, the committees listened to ALL input from local interests, and second, many committee mambers had relationships with much more powerful elected officials in the State Capital. If we saw the need, we called (or met with) Senators and Representatives to ask that they consider and act on our interests. I guess you could say our local efforts were the first step in our larger uphill battles.
So, anyway, if you don't know where you want to start, consider contcting local government and encourage those folks to join in the fight. |
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Posts: 2361
| In our case, probably too late, since one of our senators is already part of a greasy deal with a constituent that mysteriously was granted rights to build or expand a marina on Cumberland which suddenly upped the value of his land deal from pasture to penthouse. Get further east and the Bush cronies in the energy business now have a free hand to valley fill with strip tailing from mountaintop removal. filling in any headwater they see fit until the Dems either kill it legaslatively or write new laws. Bush and the republicans have been real short sited skunks when it comes to the environment. |
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