Never before has our fishing been under
such heavy pressure with millions making demands on resources that have been
fished into trouble by many fewer anglers in the past. Recreational anglers
are practically being forced to target certain species by our federal fisheries
managers. Fishermen are going to fish, so when the season for one species closes,
the other species available will have to bear the brunt of that redirected effort.
Unfortunately, the striped bass is today's recreational angling scape goat.
It's available along much of the Atlantic Coast for many months of the year.
So when fluke, seabass, blackfish or porgy season closes, that effort is then
redirected towards the striped bass. Millions of anglers looking to put meat
in their cooler have little else to fish for. Commercial fishermen are likewise
affected, they will target whichever species affords them the most opportunity
- when a season closes, they'll target a different species. Gill nets are destroying
our near shore waters, sucking the very life out of them. Then there are the
anti-fishing activists looking to remove recreational anglers from many areas
that they have historically fished based on nothing more than political pressure
and emotion. This is where fishing and conservation organizations come into
play - they are the watch dogs out there. They are politically well connected
and can be very effective in conservation efforts. But they cannot exist without
our support. These organizations exist through membership, without your support,
both financial and physical, they can do nothing at all. Please get involved
with one or more of these organizations, the product of their efforts are enjoyed
by millions, but they can only exist if we as sportsmen continue to get involved.
Please be aware that there are two types of "conservation organizations"
available to choose from. There are industry developed and funded organizations
were built by the fishing industry to protect the fishing industry first - it's
their job, they get much of their funding from the fishing industry. And there
are recreational angler built organizations who's primary focus is recreational
angling and conservative fisheries management. These groups are funded by recreational
anglers primarily, they will generally ask their membership's opinion on each
and every management position. There are many fishing and conservation organizations
out there, we are not interested in making a complete index, but if you have
or know of a high quality, active and membership driven beach buggy or access
organization that you would like to have listed here, please see our resource addition policy.
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