State Works Fishing Angle

via Courant

It's been more than 50 years, but Richard Roy can still remember the thrill of pulling his first fish from the ocean, a good-sized bluefish that as a 9-year-old he caught while fishing a deep cove off a West Haven dike early one long-ago Saturday morning.

"It used to be that it was hard not to catch a bluefish," Roy said. "But times change, and now we have to be careful and manage our fisheries if we want future generations to know what it's like to reel in a snapper blue. That means licensing and careful monitoring."

That young fisherman, now a state representative from Milford who is a chairman of the legislative committee that handles environmental issues, plans to revive an effort to install a saltwater fishing license program in Connecticut.

Connecticut requires those who fish its fresh waters to buy a $20 license each season, but it doesn't license the estimated 330,000 anglers who fish its salt waters. It's one of only eight coastal states that doesn't issue marine licenses, but, like it or not, that will soon change.

A new federal law will create a national saltwater fishing registry in 2009 to collect data that will be used to help the government manage the national fisheries. Anglers living in states without marine licensing must join the federal registry and, in 2011, start paying a registration fee.

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection asked Roy's committee to create a state licensing program so the state, and not the federal government, could set the license fee and keep the revenue in Connecticut for local conservation efforts.

The DEP wants to charge residents $15 for a marine fishing license or $25 for a license that would cover both fresh and saltwater. The money would go directly into its conservation fund and be used exclusively for fishery management, conservation and education.

As the number of freshwater fishing licenses declines, the DEP needs that marine licensing money to maintain its current level of service, said Rick Jacobson, the assistant director of the inland fisheries division. Inland fishing licenses declined from 129,000 in 1996 to 112,200 in 2006.

Inside the fishing community, the marine license debate includes a lot of talk about equality. The DEP spends about $2 million a year on marine fisheries, most of which comes from fees paid by inland fishermen through license fees, Jacobson said.

After years of fishing for free, saltwater fishermen aren't thrilled about the idea, but nobody is organizing against it. The Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen, a group that has fought against past attempts, has even come around, said lobbyist Bob Crook.

Many saltwater anglers would prefer to pay a state license fee that would be used to protect Long Island Sound and its fish than a federal registration fee, which might be substantially more than Connecticut's fee and be spent anywhere in the country, Crook said.

But some saltwater fishermen are worried that Connecticut's neighbors are not considering similar legislation. Some Connecticut fishermen wonder if the money they spend on the saltwater license will end up benefiting unlicensed New Yorkers who fish Connecticut waters.

"To me, any conservation is a good thing, because it protects the fish, the thing we all love, but I wonder about the fairness," said Eric Johnson, who owns Westport Outfitters, a tackle and bait shop in Norwalk. "Why should we get a license if they don't have to?"

On a typical Saturday, half the boats in the waters off Johnson's shop are registered in New York, Johnson said. He doesn't think the DEP has enough enforcement officers to enforce marine license violations of state or federal regulations throughout Long Island Sound.

But fishermen acknowledge that the health of Long Island Sound is improving, and fishermen like Chuck DiGiovanna, who founded the Southport Striper Club, said it's worth a try to prevent a repeat of past fishing disasters, like the striped bass collapse of the 1980s.

The first attempt to create a saltwater license in Connecticut died a quiet death over the summer, when the legislature ran out of time to consider Roy's bill and others, but Roy plans to try again in the next legislative session.