NOAA goes fishing

NOAA wants to sign up all salt water fisherman in a new fishing registry. “The national registry of saltwater anglers is the key to closing a major gap in information on recreational fishing”. NOAA’s fisheries service, which has been conducting surveys for 28 years apparently still has not gathered enough data to figure out what is going on so now, not only do they want to sign you up for the registry, they want to charge an additional $15-25.00 over what you are already paying for your state fishing license for the privilege. This sounds like a double dip, first the state, then the fed.

And what are you going to get in return for double licensing? Twice the bureaucracy for sure. The blame for the crashing anadromous species populations? Is it the recreational, catch and release guys that are really taking all the fish out of the pool? Is this the beginning of fishing rod control? I wonder if anyone at NOAA considered illegal commercial fishing off the west coast, the gulf of Alaska, or drought, or a combination of the two before considering “surveys to get a more complete picture of how recreational fishing by an estimated 14 million people is affecting fish stocks”. Let me see, 14 million fishermen catching 0 fish still equals 0 fish.

What NOAA really needs to do is spend a year riding shotgun with the US Coast Guard off the Pacific coast boarding Asian fishing boats and surveying the catch instead of shaking down the fishermen next door.

If you care to take advantage of their comment period, go here. Of course they didn’t make “electronic” commenting easy.