Back into the Trout dark-ages in Wisconsin?

So much has been written about this recently that I do not wish to re-invent the wheel here.
I shall simply summarize.

Here are links to active threads and posts on the subject:

http://busterwantstofish.com/?p=1795

http://uppermidwestflyfishing.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5888

http://www.headwatersofhistory.com/2010/04/rampant-historical-illiteracy-in-wisco.html



The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be petitioned by public advocacy during the Conservation Congress, to remove the system of special regulations on our trout streams in favor of a single five fish per day limit, effectively throwing back the clock to the dark-ages.

This proposal makes no sense on the surface, so I drilled down into it a bit.

Here is the real beef in a nutshell, once one sweeps aside spurious arguments and obfuscation.

The effort is led by several very disgruntled individuals, spearheaded by the supposed expertise of a certain rogue former DNR employee, and championed among others, by a certain former guide who has the rather dubious distinction of being banned from many internet forums due to constant inflammatory posting. The essence of what they stand for is the ability to harvest fish, especially by locals, who are represented as no longer able to fish due to restrictive catch and keep regs. Their youth and elderly can or will no longer fish argument is a mask. There are plenty of area and river sections where selective harvest is allowed, and stream access in Wisconsin is better than most any other state.

Fly-fishers have been vilified by this group as well as Trout Unlimited. Habitat improvement has been dismissed.

Effectively, this whole thing boils down to “In da good ole days we used to go down to the creek and drop a worm and catch our fill in an hour.”

The regulations which this group wishes to overturn were solidified after a drought in then late 1980s. They have allowed blue-ribbon fishing to emerge and stay. Changing the entire state to a single five fish limit effectively throws us back into the era before advanced management. The ‘good ole days’ when people could catch a bunch of brood-stock lunkers dumped in their back yard by the stocking truck, and the streams were clogged with silt, and too warm in the summers to hold trout.

Fly-anglers have pegged as elitist snobs by these guys, but it is these same ‘elitist snobs’ who every weekend, are on the streams, installing in-stream habitat improvements, bank stabilization, lunker structures, etc.

The whole bait and hardware vs. fly polarization that this group has ignited and fueled does us more harm than good. We are all stewards of the environment.