Got a few points with respect to what I think is a idea long overdue. First is the need to contact your local Sport Fish Advisory Board member and ask them what are they recommending on this topic. Probably like most sport fishing anglers in the province you ask who would that be. Well you are using the machine in front of you so go get it. What I have found out is that the majority of the people on the main board are all personnally interested in thier own little world and understand little about topics outside thier own area of expertise. I do know they have very little representation from some very large fishery areas. The bulk of the people sitting on the board deal with salt water issues. We do have Sport Fish Advisory committies that feed into the larger group but a group such as the Upper Fraser Valley has only one representitive on the main board. Thats a pretty significant group of anglers for only one voice.
Anyway you ask them whats up. Now you will hear the negative aspects of a punchcard system. It's a money grab. It's more government garp. Thats true but we need to look at what is happening now, what happened in the past and can we afford to sit on our hands any longer. If we think that some magic spell is going to suddenly fix all our problems then we only have ourselves to blame. We each have a voice. We just don't do a good enough job letting others inside the circle of influence hear it. Everything we do from now on will require each of us to give a little to benefit. Be aware that as things get worse big money will suddenly appear like it has in other parts of the world but the problem is we as common anglers will be left watching from the sidelines. Once we start something like LEH fishing for conservation reasons we can never go back. Big money continues to roll into our province via sport fishing. Any way we can take a percentage of that to put into the resouce for all to benefit is a good thing.
A third a final point with respect to punchcards. They have been in use for salmon and steelhead and I don't really hear a strong voice trying to get rid of them.