Any Tickets For Felt Wearers On Opening Day

[fishinwrench]

Changes from year to year used to be somewhat of a non-issue, the ones that wete made were well known and easy to understand.

Anymore though it is encroaching a likeness to the tax code. Firewood soon wont be hauled across county lines, crawdads can't be carried over a hill, your boots have to be approved, and bans on certain types of terminal tackle are being considered. Pretty crazy. Yet gigging still goes on unchecked.

I am too much of a curmudgeon to take all this change in stride without getting cranky.

[Feathers and Fins]

This is one thing I know for certain. If the Sportsmen of this State do not put their petty differances aside and unite under 1 banner to protect their butts they will find like other sportsmen in other states they will be regulated and taxed out of their sport.

When i was growing up in Cali, You bought a hunting license and a fishing license. Pretty simple to understand, Sure you needed a deer tag or a waterfowl stamp. But the powers that be have been allowed to take it to a new level.

2 Rodstamp, you gotta pay to have a second rod it use to be free

Upland Game stamp, yup now what use to be covered in a hunting license is now another fee you have to pay to hunt upland game.

Ocean enhancement, Yes another example of a tax use to be fish fresh or salt under a license not pay for each

I can go on ans on. But unless anglers and hunters join forces and stop stupidity you will find regulations becomming more complicated and license fees through the roof.

[ozark trout fisher]

But unless anglers and hunters join forces and stop stupidity you will find regulations becomming more complicated and license fees through the roof.

Okay, but what does stupidity have to do with the felt ban? It's a solid, science-based decision to protect the ecological integrity of spring-fed river systems.

I don't see the MDC coming up with complicated regulations except where absolutely necessary (such as deer hunting, where regs vary by conservation area, based on the deer population in the area.) Even those relatively complicated regs are very easy to understand if you are willing to take a little time. I don't see a problem, as long as there is a good reason for these regs, and there almost always is. This ain't California, and the MDC isn't the California Department of Fish and Game. If anything our regs are on the whole too simplistic to properly benefit a wide variety of resources.

[Feathers and Fins]

OTF, I at one time would have said the same of Cali fish and Game and other DFG's around the country. GREED and Special interest and worse OVER REACTION to things! These are the things that create regs and fee's that IMO are intrusive to sportsmen. You said it yourself " I don't see a problem, as long as there is a good reason for these regs, and there almost always is". Tell me though If MDC started charging for the use of more than 1 rod how would you feel? If MDC started telling you that you could not go to this lake or that lake because of possibly transporting a this alge or that mussle how woudl you feel? Or if MDC started charging to fish Lakes one price and a stream license another?

It is a very real possibility its happened in other states and politicians pay attention as do the groups who would like to restrict our activities that is facts. So who is to say it cannot happen here? I do not want to see it here and the only way to insure that is to make our voices all so loud everyone listens, but first all of us have to stop thinking one sport is stupid or one sport is better or worse than another and band togeather for US to be the ones who enforce our will's and wants. For it is also a FACT thatsportsmen are the greatest champions of the outdoors. Our voices united can make certain those things do not happen here. Or live a dream it wont happen here until 1 by one it does.

[Stoneroller]

we wouldn't need such strict regulations as some speak of if there weren't so many scumbags who overharvest, harvest out of season, pollute, etc etc. I know nobody is old enough to remember the passenger pigeon. But it's a species of bird that used to be so numerous that flocks would block out the sun when they'd migrate. flocks large enough to put the huge flocks of starlings that we now see, to shame.

One sighting in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mile wide, 300 miles long, and taking 14 hours to pass a single point with number estimates in excess of 3.5 billion birds in the flock.

You wouldn't think a bird of all things, something that can fly wherever it wishes, would need protection, especially in those numbers. BUT....

Greed, complacency and lack of common sense allowed these birds to be hunted to extinction. If everyone who hunted or fished were actually a CONSERVATIONIST first and a 'sportsman' second, we probabaly wouldn't need any game laws.

[rps]

The following is meant to be ironic humor. You know, ha ha, let's laugh at ourselves:

Now you wading pukes know what it felt like when special interests lobbied to create single barbless hook and catch and release regulations on the White.

[dennis boatman]

we wouldn't need such strict regulations as some speak of if there weren't so many scumbags who overharvest, harvest out of season, pollute, etc etc. I know nobody is old enough to remember the passenger pigeon. But it's a species of bird that used to be so numerous that flocks would block out the sun when they'd migrate. flocks large enough to put the huge flocks of starlings that we now see, to shame.

One sighting in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mile wide, 300 miles long, and taking 14 hours to pass a single point with number estimates in excess of 3.5 billion birds in the flock.

You wouldn't think a bird of all things, something that can fly wherever it wishes, would need protection, especially in those numbers. BUT....

Greed, complacency and lack of common sense allowed these birds to be hunted to extinction. If everyone who hunted or fished were actually a CONSERVATIONIST first and a 'sportsman' second, we probabaly wouldn't need any game laws.

Don't get me started on Passenger Pigeons...

[Mule]

For what it's worth, we got checked Memorial Day. One quick look to confirm the application of contact cement, and the agent was on his way.

[3wt]

Nobody checking at Montauk.

Very little actual signage to indicate you couln't use felt either. Most are still unaware of the change.

And if somebody said it's a felony they're nuts. If somebody says you can't have them in your car they're nuts. Saying both would be enough to laugh in the guys face.

[Addicted to Creeks]

i saw at least a dozen signs in the lodge and on the stream at montauk so that confuses me. i still dont understand waders in the summer anyway but thats just me