I love this Forum...it's like playing in a sandbox with a bunch of 50 yr old babies. I don't remember promoting illegal activities...just pointing out the obvious! See you all in Renfrew this season.
Don't eat the yellow snow.
A great many have worked tirelessly over years to advance the interests of all anglers particularly as it relates to the very politically sensitive fair allocation and access to Halibut including some very expensive court cases.
Your first ever forum post is a comment about how anglers can cheat on the annual Halibut limit (obvious or not) and a comment essentially as to why anglers complain about annual Halibut limits when it is easy to cheat - (flawed system or not, and one which we did not ask for and that was forced on us by government to save a few administrative dollars). Then we get some other first time poster seeing your post as an invitation or opportunity to jump on and confirm that’s how he likes to cheat on the sport fishing regulations.
I will agree your post was the milder of the two and I will agree that this a sensitive subject that prompts a rather visceral reaction. We have been fighting these battles a long time and one tires of seeing us repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot.
There are always ways to cheat on taxes, laws, commercial fishing regulations and elections if one is inclined. I fail to see how thinking up and publishing ways to cheat on the sport fishing regulations helps anglers in our efforts to maintain fair access to fishery resources and compete in a very political and public relations charged environment. Especially so when we are greatly out matched by competing interests with big money, lawyers, political connections, paid lobbyists, public relations firms with media connections and a government that loves quota systems; all of which work against our interests.
It’s an uphill battle as it is and they don’t need any help with their public relations and lobbying efforts. They are far too good at it at our expense already and they love posts they can spin to show the sport sector cannot be trusted or that our system as opposed to theirs is flawed so there should be no further halibut allocation changes in our favor. I believe it was not your intention, but I also believe the combination of those two posts works against our interests. As for the “baby” comment, I wish I was 50.
