Thread: DNR Considering Raising Fishing and Hunting License

Originally Posted by flytier

You guys are really bumming me out about the Indiana fishing, But Michigan is not much better, and their licenses money, they are more worried about the salmon than any thing.

You missed the best fishing ever in Lake Michigan as well as Huron, St. Clair For salmon fishing in the 70's and early 80's. I filled the boat with all 5 species of salmon, held the brown trout record of 20.5 lbs for a half year, and,it was nothing to catch Kings up to 35 lbs one after another. I still have a few pics of old days that will never be the same. I even gave up bow hunting as I chased salmon and walleye on Erie every weekend. Michigan found out the Great Lakes couldn't sustain the numbers of salmon they were hatchery producing and had to cut it all to pieces as well as loosing a few years of brood stock to disease in their hatcheries wiping years of fish stockings. It was tremendous fishing while it lasted.

Been sitting here thinking how fishing has changed in my life time of 67 yrs. and it's all now about fish management by every state and government due to the tremendous fishing pressure we all put on the fisheries. Years ago, I would bass fish a strip pit and in the spring, hitting them just at the right time, we'd catch nothing but stringers of 3-4-5 up to 8lb bass over and over and the limit then was 12 per person and we had all those strip pits to our selves as there wasn't any fishing pressure, but we didn't realize how long it took those fish to grow or reproduce by keeping the fat females and eating all we caught as we never considered any large enough to mount always thinking our next fish would be larger. Every year in the 70's and 80's we take fly in trips all over Canada flying into small lakes that were maybe 1/2 mile wide and 10-15 miles long and if the outfitter flew several groups of 4-6 fishermen every 5 days from last week of May thru their late summer of August, we fished those lakes completely out to where the outfitter after 5-7 years moved to a new lake to keep doing his business. Back then you could keep 12 of each species not to mention we were eating fish 3 meals a day per person. No body ever thought or knew how long it would take a lake trout to reach a size of 20 or 30 lbs back then. Canada had to learn to manage their resources due to fishing pressure and short growing season. Inventions-- I remember when the first flasher fish finder came on the market. States like Minn. and Wis. and Mich. considered and even did in some cases outlawed the use of them for a short time giving in to pressure from the public to use them. TV, Sports and Fishing Shows, Bait shops, magazines and books educated the masses. Rods, reels, baits all improved with technology. Look how much money we spend just on the rigging of our boats. First it was, we traveled and found our way with paper maps and compasses, then Loran C's, now GPS and map software. Fish finders from flasher graphs then paper graphs, now video and 3-d. And to top it all off, we now have forums to learn by. You have forums for every specie of fish to teach a person how to fish. And......what about the fish? What has he had to learn from,,, in order to survive?

I know we all give our DNR's a pretty hard time and we all want to have better fishing. Some of us are even willing to agree to pay a little more if we think it will help. The battle line is, the masses keep growing in numbers and thus so does the fishing pressure, but does the growth of our DNR's or can they even grow and keep up with the demand from the masses and our use of all our technology and improved fishing equipment as well as what we have all learned?

I'm not going to complain about the money. That's my choice to burn it. My main problem about Indiana,which where I live, is the waste of opportunity to spend it wisely. Here in southern Indiana there's more fisherman than water. Bluegrass is a prime example the state could've bought the whole area but elected only to buy half. Maybe if we were closer to Indianapolis they would've bought the whole area.

Originally Posted by flytier

You guys are really bumming me out about the Indiana fishing, But Michigan is not much better, and their licenses money, they are more worried about the salmon than any thing.

I'm bummed out also, Indiana is my home and I don't have enough years left in my life to see a significant improvement.
I guess we should all call or contact our state senate and house.

You just have to become a smarter fisherman and spend more time fishing and expect a little less in the catch. And enjoy the moments of being outdoors relaxing and enjoying the moments.

paying more wont help the hunting or fishing one bit. its a management and mismanagement issue. the deer herd being one shinning example!

they made a huge mistake, in the initial large jump in license fees several years back, and it gutted their wallet a bit. they been trying to catch up ever since.

even though they had to have had a huge take from all the lifetime licenses that year, we didnt see any improvements for sportsmen. no reason to think it would be any different with this.

Originally Posted by river scum

its a management and mismanagement issue. the deer herd being one shinning example!

I will agree with you on everything but the deer herd. Indiana is becoming a destination for trophy whitetail. There have been more scoreable bucks killed in Indiana in the last 5 years than in the last 50. What resources DNR is putting back in the field is about 80% hunting related and 10% fishing and 10% upgrading facilities. I have long said Indiana is so far behind other states when it comes to our fisheries that we will have nothing to catch before they ever attempt to actually properly manage our fisheries. Then they will stand back and ask what happened.

and your assuming everyone wants "trophy hunting". thats far from the case. look around on the net and see hordes of indiana hunters complaining(even in 8doe counties!). its just a few that only want to shoot horns, most hunt for meat. horns are only good for decorations, crafts and and egos. i only heard 6 shots, including mine, on opening day this year. everyone else in the area saying the same thing. then i only seen 4 deer the rest of the season. sounds like bad management to me.