Kirk Deeter, Angling Trade’s (AT) editor, always seems to find a good button to push that not only strikes a cord with the fly fishing industry he serves, but with regular Joe’s and Jane’s like us. His pre-ICAST Show article, ELEPHANT HUNTING, hits that cord with us and we’re sure it will with you as well.
Deeter tackles Conservation, Direct Sales by Manufacturers, Guides and Guides Standards, and Diversity as well as Access. The latter, we think, is the biggest Elephant in the room. It’s an undercurrent masked as states rights by hate the federal government – Cliven Bundy low-brows. The losing of Access to public land is a threat that anglers to birders face. Our forefathers left their homelands for many reasons. One was they’d be jailed if the hunted or fished. We’re heading back to the future when ACCESS is a chip to be played by our pretzeled thinking politicians, or should we say, paid-off politicians.
ELEPHANT HUNTING
By Kirk Deeter (Excerpted with permission. Scroll down to link and read complete story.)
ACCESS
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he thing that makes America the envy of every angler in the world is public access. Here, you don’t have to make a dream trip to a lodge to experience some of the best fly fishing. That is also, by the way, the reason that the U.S. is the largest fly-fishing market in the world. Stream access is under threat in places like Utah, now New Mexico and even Montana. But there are two other issues that demand attention as well:
1) the initiative by lawmakers to divest of America’s public lands; and
2) the “pay-to-play” model that drives a good part of this industry.
What should happen: The industry should be realistic. We’re never going to “open” stream access in places like Colorado, because there is no way to compensate landowners for what is now legally theirs. Accept that, and focus on battles we can win.
Having said that, we should fight tooth and nail (harder than we are fighting now, with more money) to protect access that exists, and counter efforts to redefine laws related to stream access. We are facing access battles every day. Utah is now at the forefront. Thank goodness for USAC. New Mexico is trending in the wrong direction. And it seems like every few months there’s another Montana billionaire who wants to walk back stream access. I’m sorry, but if your mantra—your life legacy—is to fight a stream access case to the Supreme Court in a way that seeks to limit public access to rivers and limit quality fishing opportunities to the few instead of the many… you’re a dick.
Moreover, DIY angling should be encouraged and embraced—here, and outside the country. The surest way for the Bahamas to kill its bonefish economy, for example, would be to limit DIY opportunities so that a few guides benefit (and many related service industries suffer). Did you ever wonder why the large media brands rarely do stories on a specific lodge (but the blogger will take the free trip…)? Because they are serving the interests of the larger audience.
Trout Unlimited is not going to wade into the access issue with much force. That’s not part of the TU mission, and TU has plenty to do by way of fixing damaged waterways and protecting others. Guaranteeing places to hunt and fish is expressly outlined in the mission of the Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation Partnership. AFFTA should be fully engaged on access. Its efforts on the conservation side are admirable and appreciated, but ultimately a drop in the bucket compared to what it could do if it went all-in on access.
