Tim Smith

The American Fisheries Society released a position statement on climate change today. Their position is in line with 97% of climate scientists and almost every scientific organization in the world that has taken a position on this issue.

You're right that a national organization is a hard nut to crack. I made calls all over the country looking for interested parties (including to Arkansas and Missouri). There was lip service here and there, but not many people were ready to pitch in. Jim and I did succeed in recruiting an Indiana group into the Alliance (great group over there with a super conservation ethic). That and the Alliance discussion board were about as far as it went. To keep a national organization afloat, it needs to be big enough to support a professional staff. Professional staff requires financial support and that requires numbers of members and money. The ISA focuses on stream fishing and because those are more fragile populations they (admirably) don't support tournaments. That limits their connection to some of the more traditional sources of income for recreational fisheries groups, and their numbers really aren't that high compared to more well heeled groups like the TU, the Pheasants Forever and the National Wild Turkey Federation. The total number of stream fishers for smallmouth isn't that high nation wide so that probably won't ever get much better. You could try to grow the group to reach that critical mass, but there were pitfalls to that as well. I estimated the maximum potential size for a national alliance would be 2,000 members with 1,000 being an ambitious 3 year goal. Without access to grants or a big (over)-emphasis on fund raising, that's a pretty small national group. You could try to beef up the group size by roping in the reservoir crowd, but it seems to me most of them fit better into BASS or the traditional fishing conservation groups. I don't see any conservation advantage for stream smallmouth from a group that wants to treat natural stream populations the same way it treats reservoirs. And at the end of the day, all of that seemed to be detrimental to the group as it exists. I'm pretty sure there was a fear that once professionals were involved, local control would be diluted and that would demotivate the kind of volunteer spirit that makes the ISA a success. There's sort of an activation energy (many more members or a big infusion of cash) needed to make the leap from state chapters to a national group like Trout Unlimited. From the perspective of a volunteer member or officer, why would you want to take that leap and hand something to a professional staff that you already enjoyed doing yourself? I felt there were ways around all that, but people were pretty happy with the model they had. Until those dynamics get resolved, things are pretty well stuck where they are for better or worse. For myself, my agenda for recreational fisheries is pretty well embodied in the ISA Conservation Philosophies (I was the primary author of that) That can be found here I push that agenda wherever I am... ...which is just about everywhere. I wish I could tell you where I live, Gary, but in 2010 I split my time between Illinois, Colorado, Belize and Washington state. I spent the majority of that time working on mangrove conservation and shrimp farm ecocertifications and water quality monitoring and improvement in Belize, Central America. I have more contracts lined up there next year and some people from Washington D. C. just contacted me. I'm not sure I want to live in Washington, but I'm listening.

I was in the ISA from about 2004 to 2008, Gary and I remember you posting on the forum. They stuck me in something they called "Science Director" while I as there. You may remember me from that. I think Mike Clifford handles all the stuff I did before, but I've sort of left all that behind so I don't know many details. I'd probably still be there if they had the stomach for a national organization, but I fully understand why they passed on that. It was apples vs oranges and they preferred oranges. I've moved on. I too enjoyed posting at Riversmallies and probably made Brian and Al's life a little harder with the Climate Change debate (I think Ham had some fun in that one too). I noticed though that even though it was a national board, it was more East Coast in emphasis with a large group of people there focused on the Susquehana.

I had some experiences trying to do this. You could try to do it, but it would mean some major changes and you may or may not want to tackle those. I was on the Executive Board at the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance and pushed to expand toward an umbrella forum and a national organization. In the end, the ISA board wasn't interested in part because Riversmallies already filled the national forum function, and it was something the ISA had already tried without much success. The most passionate argument against the national forum and against any national organization at all was the amount of work it takes to keep the group functional and civil. Ironically, the privately expressed frustrations of the Riversmallies board struggling to moderate all the fights and spam and hackers on their forum was cited as a good reason to avoid the national model and stick to a regional forum. The argument was that more traffic = more fights to clean up = more work for the officers and in the end does not serve the state alliance members. However, one of the limited results of the national push was a private forum was set up for alliance officers from different states to post and organize collaborative events. There were no fights on that and it couldn't be easily hacked so I was able to moderate that That probably still exists but I don't think the ISA has the resources to deal with the added work of opening it to the public. If the largest alliance doesn't want to deal with the headache, the smaller ones won't either. Randy Cutler made some noise about a national smallmouth organization a while back but that doesn't seem to be going anywhere yet. He had a budget at one point. You might check with him and see what has become of that effort. Tim Holshlag started the Smallmouth Alliance and has some pieces of an umbrella website but I don't think it has forums. I'm sure he won't want the added work, but maybe if someone showed up and were willing to handle it all... You could do it here, but it would be a significant added burden... In general I still think a national forum smallmouth group is needed (if done well). There are national movements afoot for contitutional ammendements for water access. There are national issues pertaining to water quality and the environment. Basic conservation and scientific research for smallmouth has national applications and in general you have a bigger impact if you're a bigger group. Right now the regional smallmouth groups have to particpate in these things through other outlets. For warmwater streams in particular the absence of an active thoughtful national smallmouth conservation group is a significant void.