I am not sure how many of these meetings are doing the comment cards like they did in Indian River last night, but I liked the idea. It did remind me though that I was supposed to post something a while back about emailing the managers and biologists… I didn't do it, cuz I didn't really know what was productive dialogue. Anyhow here is a list of things that seemed important last night in Indian River:
1. They wanted to hear support for the 5 points being discussed
-CIR year round
-Opener delayed till June
-Mandatory harvest registration
-making 50" MSL available to all lakes, not just brood lakes
-Specific MSL changes
2. They want to know the "social" support of the musky fisheries as a whole. They always want to know if you partake in the fishery, and why you care about it, a statewide view is fine.
3. They want to know how these changes will affect your view of the fishery, and your willingness to participate. Their job is to get people fishing in their regions.
Anyhow, I had emailed the NLHMU people a couple weeks ago. I got varied responses, but the unit manager Dave Borgeson did respond, and added that he will "make sure I save your email and include it with any comments we get regarding any potential muskellunge regulation change proposal". I went in depth on a lot of things in my original email, but I have determined after last night it didn't matter how much I said I knew! All of these people fully understand the biology behind our proposals, they don't need to hear it again (frankly they know we are right!). They need to hear that people throughout the state are concerned about it too!
Basically, if you can't attend a meeting and fill out a comment card, it will not fall on deaf ears to send them an email with your thoughts. It might be another way to "mobilize the troops" by reaffirming your support by emailing the managers and biologists.
Here are links to the different units, and their contacts:
WLSMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
ELSMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
NLMMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
NLHMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
SLHMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
CLMMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
SLMMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
LEMU – <url url="[Permission to view this media is denied]
"><link_text text="[Permission to view this media is denied] … –,00.html">[Permission to view this media is denied]
[size=150]Please use email as a last resort ONLY. [/size]
MMA attendance has been decent at these meetings but we've got hundreds of members and non-member muskie anglers not attending. I know we're speaking to a small percentage of members here on the forum but I'll again express that MMA members need to make the meetings. This week was relatively easy compared to the upcoming meetings in the UP so it's understandable that most MMA members will not be able to make those meetings. Upcoming though I hopeful that we'll see better turnout at the Bay City/SLHMU and Traverse City/CLMMU meetings.
"Steve S" said:
At these other meetings did they have the dots like at the Waterford meeting?
That is the only thing I thought was a good idea at the Waterford meeting that hasn't been done at any of the other meetings. The other meetings have asked everyone to complete comment cards. I understand it works best for them to capture comments but I really liked the voting for each topic so everyone could see support or lack of support.
368
20
1 Guest(s)