03-26-2013, 03:36 PM
[quote flygoddess]...I think many people are not as clueless as you might think...[/quote]
I believe that there are a very good number of anglers that participate on these internet forums that DO understand most of this. It's not those anglers that we're speaking of. Like you, I do think there are a lot of educated anglers. But I think you'd also agree that the majority of people that fish in Utah could fall into an category that lacks the knowledge of basic fish biology.
As for the illegal actions of those anglers snagging and overharvesting -- I think that all falls into the same category as illegal trespassing across private lands to fish in a stream. Illegal is illegal. Snagging and harvest laws need to be enforced whether the inlet is open to fishing or not. The biology of the decision to open the inlet to fishing is sound. That shouldn't change. Education on both ends (illegal snagging as well as legal fishing) isn't going to hurt the situation.
It is quite possible that the opening of the inlet channel to fishing created an opportunity for some anglers to illegally harvest more fish -- but you have to wonder if those same people illegally snagging and taking more than a legal limit would have done so regardless of the rule to legally fish in the inlet? Maybe having legal, responsible, anglers fishing the same area has actually helped resolve a problem that many would never have known was happening in the first place??
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I believe that there are a very good number of anglers that participate on these internet forums that DO understand most of this. It's not those anglers that we're speaking of. Like you, I do think there are a lot of educated anglers. But I think you'd also agree that the majority of people that fish in Utah could fall into an category that lacks the knowledge of basic fish biology.
As for the illegal actions of those anglers snagging and overharvesting -- I think that all falls into the same category as illegal trespassing across private lands to fish in a stream. Illegal is illegal. Snagging and harvest laws need to be enforced whether the inlet is open to fishing or not. The biology of the decision to open the inlet to fishing is sound. That shouldn't change. Education on both ends (illegal snagging as well as legal fishing) isn't going to hurt the situation.
It is quite possible that the opening of the inlet channel to fishing created an opportunity for some anglers to illegally harvest more fish -- but you have to wonder if those same people illegally snagging and taking more than a legal limit would have done so regardless of the rule to legally fish in the inlet? Maybe having legal, responsible, anglers fishing the same area has actually helped resolve a problem that many would never have known was happening in the first place??
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