MDC Fishing Report?

[tjm]

59 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

but overall you'd be a lot less happy with about 40 or more other states' fish and game departments.

Probably make that 46 or 47, most states the fish and game is legislated and changes at the whim of the masses, think limits and regulations set by animal rights advocates and the politicians they elect.  

[fishinwrench]

55 minutes ago, Flysmallie said:

I seriously doubt it's anywhere close to that much. I know people that do these kind of tasks and none of them are making $25 bucks an hour. It's probably an intern or some minimum wage employee spending a few hours each week getting the info together. 

But yeah at this point it's probably a waste. But I bet more dollars have been wasted here whining about nothing than what it costs them to produce it for a month or two. Who cares. 

If that was the only rediculous and/or halfass thing they did then "who cares" would definitely apply.  

Far from it.  For the amount of money they have at their disposal the performance they display overall is a disgrace.  And the part that fires me off like a bottle rocket is when they say things like "cut our funding and accesses will be closed and gated off".   Boy oh boy...that statement shot my blood pressure up so fast it made my ears start ringing.  Those accesses have been paid for many times over, so even if the MDC were COMPLETELY defunded they should still belong to the people and remain open.  If they wanna quit cutting the grass FINE !    That constitutes a "WHO CARES" that is 100% valid. 

[Flysmallie]

Well if you want them just to quit doing all this stuff everyone finds useless then let them turn that money back over to other parts of the government so it can be wasted somewhere else. By the way the grass cutting is usually a contract job for a regular person so if you want them to cut that then realize that it's a regular person trying to feed their family that's going to suffer.

It's no different than the government threatening to shut down every 15 minutes. But if everybody that wants to be like Larry continues to female doggy and moan I'm sure you will eventually get your way and that will make it a whole lot worse. I know it's not perfect but most of the people in the MDC are only trying to earn a living while toeing the line with citizens and the politicians in charge. 

[fishinwrench]

Never said I "wanted them to stop cutting grass".   My point was THAT is about the only ongoing thing at the accesses that requires continuing payment.  

 

[Quillback]

2 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

M I ain't always happy with what they do, but overall you'd be a lot less happy with about 40 or more other states' fish and game departments.

This is true, having spent near 20 years of my life living in Washington State, the WDFW is not an organization that you feel is on the side of sportsmen.  

[Al Agnew]

Well, there is some maintenance of accesses besides cutting the grass.  Most of them are in the floodplain, and with the floods we've been having in recent years, they get damaged a LOT.  Merrill Horse Access on Big River has had the road washed out several times, and there is a thick layer of mud on many of the accesses including Merrill Horse after floods--I had to check out three different accesses on Big River last year before finding one where I could actually launch my boat after a flood, the others were covered in wet, slick mud.  Wouldn't be long, if they were ignored, before they were unusable.  

If the sales tax was dumped, MDC would lose something like 60% of their funding.  Think you could still operate in anything like your present circumstances if your pay was cut 60%?  They would have to quadruple fishing and hunting license fees to come anywhere close to making up the difference.

They do use science to make their decisions.  You might not agree with the science.  It might turn out to be wrong.  But they don't make decisions willy nilly.  And they have to keep a very diverse bunch of people happy at the same time.  I think that they do a fair job of it.  Is there some wasted money?  Of course, there is in any large organization, whether a part of the government or the private sector.  But overall they do a pretty good job.

[fishinwrench]

If they were doing what they do now on a 3rd of the money they have, then I'd agree that they were doing a pretty good job.

[MOPanfisher]

There a lot of things that MDC does that are not targeted toward benefitting fishermen, there are a lot of rhings, hunting, biological studies, small game and upland birds, watchable wildlife, education, endangered species, caves, etc.  Agreed there are some $ wasted.

[JCreek]

Do people not notice that the great majority of the commission's time and money now goes into the large cities of the state?  They spend loads on those big nature centers because cities are where the votes to retain the sales tax are found.  The "Conservation Areas" near me are abandoned and grown up.  One even had the outhouse removed.  One is actually marked with no trespass signs and few people know it exists.

I retired from a different state office and know well how a lot of my taxes are wasted.  All agencies need oversight.  

But, think I'll open a different can of worms and go fishing this evening!

[tjm]

2 hours ago, JCreek said:

Do people not notice that the great majority of the commission's time and money now goes into the large cities of the state?  They spend loads on those big nature centers because cities are where the votes to retain the sales tax are found. 

Makes sense , it's not only the votes in the cities; by far the majority of the sales tax is actually paid in those cities. If you get most of your income from one source does it make sense to ignore that source and give all your services to some group that pays next to nothing in?

2 hours ago, JCreek said:

The "Conservation Areas" near me are abandoned and grown up.  One even had the outhouse removed. 

Must be in the City to ever have had an outhouse?