04-15-2008, 12:09 AM
If you hang out with fishermen and listen to their conversations, you will soon discern three ideas that form the foundation of the angling community's beliefs.
"¢ Each angler wants improved fishing, which means more fish and bigger fish.
"¢ Each angler knows how to achieve this goal.
"¢ If fish and game agencies would heed each angler's advice, our stocks of fish would proliferate and numbers of big fish would multiply.
These three represent angling's immutable truths, even though each embraces contradictions sufficient to cause a logician to cast doubt on the immutableness of their purported veracity.
For example, consider the issue of "more fish." Fish populations can multiply to the point where a given body of water is overcrowded. Growth is inhibited by a lack of food. The fish become stunted. From an angler's standpoint, the fish are extraordinarily plentiful but undesirably small. This is especially true in ponds and small lakes. Thus, "more fish" often results in too many fish to allow for the growth of "big fish," which anglers also want. By the same token, big, predatory fish can devour too many small fish to allow for an abundant population of smaller but equally desirable species. Demands for "more fish" and "big fish" are therefore often in conflict, an issue anglers rarely consider.
A second problem involves the belief that each individual angler knows best how to improve fishing, based on his or her experience, by changing fishing regulations (season dates, creel limits, minimum sizes, etc.), poisoning undesirable species, stocking new species and so forth. These proposals also are often in conflict. Angler A might advance a plan to allow for greater numbers of northern pike. Angler B demands changes to build a larger population of yellow perch. But more northerns will eat more perch, resulting in a decline in the perch population. Angler A's plan dooms Angler B.
This is a simplified example. By the time Angler C (a largemouth bass fanatic), Angler D (a bluegill aficionado) and Angler E (a trout angler) join the table at the tavern to advance their pet proposals, the biological and political conflicts resemble a piscatorial demolition derby. The options are too numerous and conflicting to allow for any meaningful resolution. The result is stasis.
The only thing all members at the tavern table agree on is that each knows more than any fish and game agency. Each natural resource agency is viewed as populated with know-nothings who oppose change. These assertions are not universally true, as biological studies and changes in fishing regulations over the recent years have proven. But this is conveniently ignored in most discussions.
So, with this as background, with no attempt to resolve the contradictions outlined above, and with the weather too cold to encourage us to venture outdoors, let us ask the bartender to bring another round so that I can inject into the conversation my latest brain dropping and we can continue arguing.
As most of us know, if given the choice between fishing a public lake and a private pond, most of us will opt for the latter. We know that in the latter the odds favor us catching more fish and bigger fish, especially largemouth bass, if access to the pond and the catch is restricted. The reason is obvious. The pond's owner does not allow his guests to fill stringers with fish, especially big fish, whereas on public waters too many anglers seek to maximize the number and size of fish they catch and keep.
How can we avoid over-fishing our public waters to provide higher quality angling? My solution is to let anglers dictate the solution.
The law holds that fish in public waters are the property of the state, held in trust for the people. When an angler catches a fish in a legal manner and holds it in his hand, title to the fish instantly transfers to the angler. In legal terminology he has "reduced it to possession." He can take it home and eat it, feed it to the cat, give it to a neighbor or simply toss "the smelly thing" in the trash can. He can keep it alive in a bucket of water and later release it in a private pond. He can keep it captive in a pen attached to his dock. He can take it to a taxidermist. He can do all manner of things with it.
But if the angler releases the fish, returning it to the water so that it can be caught another day, he loses title to the fish. Its fate is no longer in the individual's hands. It once again becomes the property of the state, likely to be killed by the next angler who happens to hook and land it, especially if it is of trophy size.
Why should an angler be forced to surrender title to his fish if he returns it alive to the water? Why not change the law to allow him to retain title if he so desires? Acknowledgement of title could easily be established by punching a hole in the tailfin with a paper punch or clipping off a pectoral fin. Catch-and-keep anglers would be required by law to immediately release alive any fin-clipped or tail-perforated fish.
Thus, both catch-and-keep and catch-and-release anglers would be treated equally. He who first reduces the fish to possession would be granted title, if he so desires.
Consider this scenario: You have a cottage on one of Indiana's small lakes. You enjoy bass fishing on summer evenings, going out for a couple of hours of enjoyment. On one particular evening you catch a 3-pound largemouth, a nice fish that might weigh 4 pounds next year, 5 pounds the following year and so on. You punch a hole in the tail or clip a fin and return it to the water, hoping to encounter the fish later in the summer or the following year. If you and your like-minded angling neighbors exercised title to sufficient numbers of bass, the angling would improve, especially for larger fish. Your evening pleasure would be enhanced. There still would be plenty of fish for the catch-and-keep angler.
The law would simply declare prior title to the fish had been established by fin-clipping or tail-punching - and it is not yours to keep, even if you are the one who originally caught and fin-clipped it. Ownership would accrue to an anonymous class of individuals, rather than a specific angler.
What do you think? Would this allow each of us to participate more meaningfully in the management of our local fisheries? Would this allow each of us to take the helm and become to a greater degree the captain of our fate?
James H. Phillips can be reached at jahoph@aol.com.
"¢ Each angler wants improved fishing, which means more fish and bigger fish.
"¢ Each angler knows how to achieve this goal.
"¢ If fish and game agencies would heed each angler's advice, our stocks of fish would proliferate and numbers of big fish would multiply.
These three represent angling's immutable truths, even though each embraces contradictions sufficient to cause a logician to cast doubt on the immutableness of their purported veracity.
For example, consider the issue of "more fish." Fish populations can multiply to the point where a given body of water is overcrowded. Growth is inhibited by a lack of food. The fish become stunted. From an angler's standpoint, the fish are extraordinarily plentiful but undesirably small. This is especially true in ponds and small lakes. Thus, "more fish" often results in too many fish to allow for the growth of "big fish," which anglers also want. By the same token, big, predatory fish can devour too many small fish to allow for an abundant population of smaller but equally desirable species. Demands for "more fish" and "big fish" are therefore often in conflict, an issue anglers rarely consider.
A second problem involves the belief that each individual angler knows best how to improve fishing, based on his or her experience, by changing fishing regulations (season dates, creel limits, minimum sizes, etc.), poisoning undesirable species, stocking new species and so forth. These proposals also are often in conflict. Angler A might advance a plan to allow for greater numbers of northern pike. Angler B demands changes to build a larger population of yellow perch. But more northerns will eat more perch, resulting in a decline in the perch population. Angler A's plan dooms Angler B.
This is a simplified example. By the time Angler C (a largemouth bass fanatic), Angler D (a bluegill aficionado) and Angler E (a trout angler) join the table at the tavern to advance their pet proposals, the biological and political conflicts resemble a piscatorial demolition derby. The options are too numerous and conflicting to allow for any meaningful resolution. The result is stasis.
The only thing all members at the tavern table agree on is that each knows more than any fish and game agency. Each natural resource agency is viewed as populated with know-nothings who oppose change. These assertions are not universally true, as biological studies and changes in fishing regulations over the recent years have proven. But this is conveniently ignored in most discussions.
So, with this as background, with no attempt to resolve the contradictions outlined above, and with the weather too cold to encourage us to venture outdoors, let us ask the bartender to bring another round so that I can inject into the conversation my latest brain dropping and we can continue arguing.
As most of us know, if given the choice between fishing a public lake and a private pond, most of us will opt for the latter. We know that in the latter the odds favor us catching more fish and bigger fish, especially largemouth bass, if access to the pond and the catch is restricted. The reason is obvious. The pond's owner does not allow his guests to fill stringers with fish, especially big fish, whereas on public waters too many anglers seek to maximize the number and size of fish they catch and keep.
How can we avoid over-fishing our public waters to provide higher quality angling? My solution is to let anglers dictate the solution.
The law holds that fish in public waters are the property of the state, held in trust for the people. When an angler catches a fish in a legal manner and holds it in his hand, title to the fish instantly transfers to the angler. In legal terminology he has "reduced it to possession." He can take it home and eat it, feed it to the cat, give it to a neighbor or simply toss "the smelly thing" in the trash can. He can keep it alive in a bucket of water and later release it in a private pond. He can keep it captive in a pen attached to his dock. He can take it to a taxidermist. He can do all manner of things with it.
But if the angler releases the fish, returning it to the water so that it can be caught another day, he loses title to the fish. Its fate is no longer in the individual's hands. It once again becomes the property of the state, likely to be killed by the next angler who happens to hook and land it, especially if it is of trophy size.
Why should an angler be forced to surrender title to his fish if he returns it alive to the water? Why not change the law to allow him to retain title if he so desires? Acknowledgement of title could easily be established by punching a hole in the tailfin with a paper punch or clipping off a pectoral fin. Catch-and-keep anglers would be required by law to immediately release alive any fin-clipped or tail-perforated fish.
Thus, both catch-and-keep and catch-and-release anglers would be treated equally. He who first reduces the fish to possession would be granted title, if he so desires.
Consider this scenario: You have a cottage on one of Indiana's small lakes. You enjoy bass fishing on summer evenings, going out for a couple of hours of enjoyment. On one particular evening you catch a 3-pound largemouth, a nice fish that might weigh 4 pounds next year, 5 pounds the following year and so on. You punch a hole in the tail or clip a fin and return it to the water, hoping to encounter the fish later in the summer or the following year. If you and your like-minded angling neighbors exercised title to sufficient numbers of bass, the angling would improve, especially for larger fish. Your evening pleasure would be enhanced. There still would be plenty of fish for the catch-and-keep angler.
The law would simply declare prior title to the fish had been established by fin-clipping or tail-punching - and it is not yours to keep, even if you are the one who originally caught and fin-clipped it. Ownership would accrue to an anonymous class of individuals, rather than a specific angler.
What do you think? Would this allow each of us to participate more meaningfully in the management of our local fisheries? Would this allow each of us to take the helm and become to a greater degree the captain of our fate?
James H. Phillips can be reached at jahoph@aol.com.