Swimbait,

No flame intended. Got to watch ourselves more with email. You may have just misunderstood my first statement. My facts have been and are straight. I wasn't pointing to any board or person in particular on this site or any other. Every once and a while I come across a thread, maybe not here, where people are letting their emotions run hot and going a little overboard. Saying things like if we don’t stop the MLPA the DFG isn’t going to stop there. They will just close one area after another. I just see that kind of talk a little misleading and unproductive.

I don't want to get back into this MLPA debate, but even if they got every “state marine reserve” they wanted I personally wouldn't worry as a recreational fisherman. Let the fishes have a few place where they could be unmolested and lets see what happens with their populations. I have fished so many of the hot spots up and down the coast, nearshore and offshore, and in areas they want to close. I’ll just move on to a different area and still catch ‘em. The ocean is a huge area and there are a million great spots off California to fish no matter where you live. Many fish stocks are in decline or at very low levels and there are more things we need to do about it.

Our population is growing exponentially along with our demand for ocean resources. And as ocean resources begin to dry up commercial fisherman are going to be hurt by it. There’s no way to get around that. We’re all going to feel the pain. Our country consumes 30% of the energy produced annually worldwide while only producing 5%. We are all going to have to lower our standards of living a bit unlike what GWB says.

The DFG has got a lot of people frustrated and scared about losing their rights to fish in some productive waters and rightly so. But we all let this happen and we knew it was coming sooner or later and we are all going to have to deal with it. I don’t want to totally defend everything the DFG does. They can be real idiots dealing with people. And I’m not saying the MLPA doesn’t have its flaws we all see that is does. What I am saying is that the DFG needs to 'get with it' and learn to work better with the people who supply them with the majority of their money, license holders. Then they might be able to do a better job at doing their job. If the DFG would address all Californians, the people they work for, they would make it much easier for themselves to collect funds and information and work with us. They are way behind in the way they should be doing business, typical old style government b.s., and I think everybody in this debate realizes this.

Mike