Members of the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee held hearings last week on a bill that would create a saltwater-fishing license system in Maine. While the idea has surfaced on several occasions over the past decade, there is additional urgency on the part of state officials now because a backroom measure has been introduced at the federal level to require a “registry” of saltwater anglers. States that have a federally approved saltwater fishing license will be exempt. Officials in the Maine Department of Marine Resources are arguing that the state can keep all the money by imposing a license here first. For Maine’s already overburdened taxpayers, that’s a lot like giving a condemned man the choice of execution by lethal injection or the electric chair.
According to federal estimates, there are as many as 350,000 saltwater anglers in Maine. Multiply that by the proposed $15 fee for residents – out-of-staters will be charged substantially more for individual licenses – and the minimum potential annual revenue comes to more than $5.2 million.
As submitted to the committee, the bill requires that the money collected go into a fund to be used for resource and habitat enhancement, fisheries management research, acquisition of critical land, enforcement of marine resources laws, education and outreach and, of course, “administration and operating expenses.”
The English translation for all of this – a new bloated bureaucracy.
One of the true pleasures of living near the ocean is the idea that if you want to try and catch something for supper, all you have to do is dig out your fishing rod and head down to the shore. It is comforting to think that there are still places where a person can wrest some sustenance from mother nature without first having to fill out a pile of forms in triplicate and then paying a hefty fee.
It wasn’t too many years ago that a Maine resident could go down to the water after work, dig a few clams or maybe untangle the drop line, dangle it off the town float and catch the occasional flounder. Add a few peas and new potatoes from the garden and you had a pretty satisfying, inexpensive meal.
To do that today you first must get your recreational claming license, which will set you back $20. Then, because property taxes are so high few can afford to live on the saltwater anymore, you’ll have to drive down to the flats or the dock where you may or may not have to pay to park. If you want to use a boat, the craft requires annual state registration fees both for boat and motor. You also may have to pay a fee to use the public launch ramp – $5 and up per use in some places. Of course, getting there isn’t cheap either.
So what’s another $15 on top of all that for a saltwater fishing license?
The saddest fact is that the state may be creating an entire new agency to regulate — and, in effect, tax — an activity that probably catches fewer fish in an entire year than a larger trawler nets during a week at sea.
In the end, a saltwater fishing license isn’t about regulating and monitoring fisheries. It’s about government chasing another pot of your gold. Instead of fighting so hard to get more of our money and create an even larger state bureaucracy, state officials should reject this latest licensing push and put an equal amount of time and effort into trying to fight the federal licensing rule.
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