This month’s issue of Angling Trade popped while we were in our move induced blogging coma last week. They’ve titled it the ‘Opinion Issue’ and there are several thoughtful pieces offered, included one focusing on access issues – a topic near and dear to our collective hearts.
From Public Access…Are You Fighting for It? You Should. (author Tom Bie, emphasis mine)
People sometimes say to me, “Sure, private water sucks—until you get to fish it.” But I’ve always felt that the opposite was true: that the satisfaction of finding fish on your own, on a stretch?of public water that anyone can access, is twice as satisfying as having your hand held next to a stash of corn-fed counterfeits that would rise to a postage stamp if you could cast it out there.
Besides, I hope people in this industry will fight for public access over privatization because it’s the right thing to do, not just because they haven’t yet been invited to fish a contrived stretch of water that was purchased, perfected, and manicured before they arrived.
Bie’s piece is focused on some of the (frankly outrageous) access restriction claims being made in Colorado (Wilder on the Taylor), though he reminds us that the concepts of navigability, the ‘takings clause’, ‘givings’ and eminent domain are being tossed around in access debates ongoing today.
The recent SCOTUS ruling related to Montana waters has potentially opened the ‘access argument door’ even wider as related to issues of navigability, a cornerstone of many access regulations.
Bie’s point that the industry should be paying attention AND helping fight the access battle is right on the mark; the industry (manufacturers and big retailers) side has been conspicuously quiet on this one.
