We know something is coming, whether it be the already mandated Federal Registry (Jan. 1, 2010), state registry or state saltwater license.  Delaware put one in place for 2008 and NY has one in the works.  There are some bills in legislature already that hopefully don’t pass the way they are structured.  I am for a state license.  Why would we want to send money to the Federal Government to be put in the general fund and never used for fishing?  I think Tom’s white paper is excellent and brings up a lot of very important points for the structuring of a saltwater license in NJ.  While most of the angling community is against a license, I don’t see a way around it.  If it is well thought out it very well could make things a lot better in the future.  One thing it could benefit is the traveling angler, if you fish Delaware Bay, NJ waters and Raritan Bay if NJ structures the license properly it would be reciprocal or honored in each neighboring state so you would not be required to purchase three licenses.  Despite the corruption and political bias in NJ I think a saltwater license can be structured to help the recreational angler if enough of us get behind the process to ensure it is tailored to our specifications and not the to the politicians liking.

Take a read and I think if you are on the fence or against a license you may rethink your position.

Federal Registry White Paper by: Tom Fote

Tags: JCAA, legislation, NMFS

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 9:03 AM and is filed under Regulations & Legislative. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.