May 16, 2018 — Connecticut in the springtime means one thing — fishing season. The coastal communities awaken from a long winter, the energy from fishermen builds to a crescendo, the tackle shops start to buzz and the docks come alive with hopes of what the new season will bring. As a manager of a tackle shop, it is my favorite time of year.
In my 40 years in the industry, I’ve seen good fishing years and bad ones. This year is shaping up to be a good one, but there are troubling signs on the horizon. Some folks in Congress are pushing changes to the overarching legislation that governs our federally managed fisheries, and these changes threaten to undermine our prosperity and take us back to when fishing wasn’t so good. Contrary to its name, the proposed Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act of 2017 or Modern Fish Act, is a big step backward and goes against what’s right for our marine resources. It would make it easier to reverse hard quotas on fishing that have helped restore stocks of species that were overfished.
Coastal communities and small businesses like mine, which are the backbone of Connecticut’s fishing industry, rely on abundant fish populations. So it is crucial that when conservation rules work well, like the policies that protect and rebuild fisheries under the existing Magnuson-Stevens Act, that we support an abundant fishery by keeping the law in place.
Read the full editorial at the Hartford Courant