Willard Perch...DWR Response

[TubeDude]

Putting limits is a valuable way to help manage fish. But how do you manage people??
I think we need to educate fisherman. Who needs to take a full limit everytime they fish..
A few good fishers can limit out day after day on fish like kokanees,  and still obey the laws, but is getting a limit the way we find success?? 
Like most things we love we need to control our pleasures.

Reminds me of one of the routines from the late Zig Ziglar.  "We always had plenty to eat when I was a kid.  I know that because every time I asked for more my dad would tell me I already had plenty."

If we did not have a regulatory agency establishing limits, the "happy harvesters" would have a much greater effect on our fisheries.  Bad enough as it is.  But some people treat our sports fisheries as their own private fish market.  They feel entitled to harvest as many fish as they want on every trip.  With some of these people it is just an ego thing...to be able to brag about large catches.  With others, it is a cultural thing...and the fish caught are always consumed as a big part of the family food budget.  Still others fish for profit...selling off their catch to anyone who will pay for fresh fish.

I grew up in a "modest income" family in Idaho.  Everyone in my large extended family participated in our group fishing trips.  There was a friendly competition to see who could catch the most and the biggest...and there were some heavy harvest trips.  But there was never any waste.  All of the fish were properly cared for and utilized on the table. 

In short, we practiced "subsistence fishing".  This was a fairly common thing then...and I suspect some of that thinking has carried over into the next generation of anglers in many areas.  So we still have whole families fishing for limits...just because they can...and because they have never really been converted to conservation fishing.

As you imply, the problem with fisheries rape is not with faulty regulations.   It is with people.  DWR sets the limits based upon their studies of the waters, the species and "normal" angler participation.  They cannot account for the folks who deliberately set out to violate the regulations...use illegal fishing methods...and often without even buying a fishing license.  In talking with DWR officers I hear plenty of stories about groups caught with over limits, fishing illegally and none of them has a license.  That ain't DWRs fault...but it is their problem.