Join the Fight with RFA and Get Chance to Win Costa Rica Trip

Costa Rica salifsh goes aerial. Photo copyright Robert Montgomery

You have a few more days to join the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) and be entered into a random drawing to win a fishing trip for two to Zancudo Lodge in Costa Rica.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, RFA is the loud, rowdy guy in the room when the discussion is the loss of our rights to fish. “Compromise” generally is not in its vocabulary.

Recently, Dr. Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ---  and Public Enemy No. 1 when it comes to endangering our rights to fish --- asked Congress for additional funding for Catch Shares, a federal scheme that would limit access, while allowing a few to profit from a public resource.

In response, RFA Executive Director Jim Donofrio said this:

"By commoditizing a public resource and placing share distinctions on individual fishes, what the catch share policy would do is give big corporations and wealthy non-profit groups the ability to buy up all the harvest for themselves, leaving individual anglers and coastal communities standing at the dock with nothing.

 "This whole orchestrated effort by Dr. Lubchenco and her friends at Environmental Defense Fund is nothing more than a resource grab which will destroy our marine industry and take away access for millions of Americans.

"I can't fathom how Dr. Lubchenco can claim to support best available science when her Administration is asking Congress for money, not to improve stock assessments and data collection, but for coastal sharecropping schemes which will destroy our mom and pop businesses along the coast.”

So . . . want to support RFA in the fight? If so, join today, while you still can be entered in the Costa Rica contest.

Here’s what RFA says about the three-day trip:

“Located along the scenic Pacific Coast of Costa Rica on the bay of Golfo Dulce, just 4 miles from Golfito, the Zancudo Lodge is a world-class destination for anglers looking to hook up marlin, sails, dorado, tuna, roosterfish, snapper, giant jacks, trevally, and many others.”

Enemies of Recreational Fishing Identified

If you are to defend what you love from threats, you must first identify the enemies. For recreational fishing, here are the big three:

1. Animal rights groups. Historically, organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Humane Society of the United States have been the most vocal in their opposition to fishing, as well as hunting and trapping. PETA especially has made a name for itself with campaigns that are more goofy than effective.

They aren’t the No. 1 threat anymore. But because of their deep pockets and alliances with left-wing environmental groups, they are a force to be reckoned with and concerned about. Check out their history at the Activistcash website: PETA and HSUS.

2. Big-government advocates in the Obama administration and their well-funded non-government allies, including Environmental Defense Fund and Pew Environmental Trusts. Via Catch Shares, the National Ocean Council, and other schemes, they want to limit access to fisheries and to tell us where we and cannot fish.  They pursue their objectives under the guise of ending “overfishing.”

Check out this great article about the Catch Shares scheme at The American Thinker.

And here’s one of the latest examples of the anti-fishing misinformation campaign, as reported by the Center for Coastal Conservation.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is the chief threat here, with director Jane Lubchenco as the 500-pound gorilla in the room. She served on the board of the Pew Oceans Commission and was a trustee for the EDF.

Some of these people are anti-fishing. Others aren’t necessary against it, but don’t care about recreational fishing’s vast historic, cultural, and economic value. They would consider its demise an acceptable loss for implementation of their big-government vision in which public access to a public resource is limited, while a favored few reap huge profits.

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Catch Shares Slapped Down by House

It’s a small victory, but definitely could lead to bigger and better things.

By a 259-159 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to cut off funding for Catch Shares, a commodities scheme devised by the feds with their friends from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to manage the ocean’s fisheries.

Although it seems to be focused on eliminating overfishing by commercials, Catch Shares, as applied by the heavy hand of this administration, also could cap and limit participation by recreational anglers. (Click on “Catch Shares” below this article to learn more.)

The Glouscester Times reports:

“The vote marked the first time a House of Congress has weighed in on the management regimen, and it looms as a setback for the Obama administration, whose most visible advocate of catch shares is Jane Lubchenco, the embattled NOAA (National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration) administrator who formerly served as a top board member with Environmental Defense.

“While with EDF, she helped organize a disputed scientific justification for catch shares, implying that without them, all food fish would soon be taken. Those claims have since been disputed by many marine scientists, up to and including Steve Murawski, the recently retired chief NOAA scientist who asserted last month that U.S. conservation policies have already succeeded in effectively ending overfishing.”

Welcome to the War; Now Get Involved!

Many of you who have discovered this site express surprise --- and anger --- when you learn about the threats facing recreational fishing, especially those regarding access. You tell me that you don't understand why more isn't known about these issues and why more isn't being done to protect our rights.

Of course, I share your concern. That's why I started The Activist Angler. I hope that it will inspire you to educate yourself and get involved. To learn more, check out these search terms on this site: National Ocean Council, MLPA, NOAA, catch shares, Cape Hatteras, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, anti-fishing, spatial planning, and overfishing.

Also, check out the Be an Activist page for a list of organizations who are on our side and contact information for Congress.

Please, get involved. Our fishing future depends on it.

Bureaucrats Can't Improve a Day on the Water. But they Sure as Hell Can Ruin It

For at least the next two years, the greatest threat nationally to the future of recreational angling will come from the federal government. More specifically, it will come from Dr. Jane Lubchenco and her National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce.

 If President Obama is re-elected, then that threat likely will not only persist but grow because of the structure that Lubchenco and her environmental stalwarts are putting in place. If he is not, the structure still will be there, meaning the threat will be as well, although possibly on a lesser scale.

One leg of that structure is the National Ocean Council (NOC), borne from the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. (See post below: A Ban on Recreational Fishing? Not Yet . . .)

The other is Catch Shares, a strategy that is supposed to be about conservation, but really is about federal management and control. But while the NOC would allow federal intrusion into all waters, Catch Shares is directed at marine fisheries, both commercial and recreational.

 At the American Thinker, Mike Johnson presents a revealing piece about Lubchenco, NOAA, and Catch Shares. The introduction should be enough to hook you:

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