Just received a fishing survey from NOAA
 

Being the cynic that I am, I can't help be suspicious about the true intent of the "Southern California Sportfishing Survey" that I recently received from NOAA. The 17-page booklet covers everything from species & locations to opinions on bag limits, and personal income and fishing expeditures. I've never seen one of these surveys before and it seems to me the timing is tied to the MLPA process? NOAA states in their letter:

"This is your chance to help fishery managers better understand:

- Your fishing experiences, species, demographics, and expenditures.
- Your preferences as they relate to bag limits and fishing costs.
- Any other personal comments that you may have regarding the survey, fishery management, or other topics relevant to fishing."

Anyone have any thoughts or knowledge on how the survey data will be used? Did you get one? What would/did you do? Thanks.

This survey is probably part of a process to help the sport and commercial fishing industry.

To date, there is no real finacial data that shows how valuable the sport fishing industry is to our local economy, and the lively hood of the citizens who fish.

The people at NOAA are all avid fishermen and are on our side, I know many of them and they are against the MLPA process. They are simply trying to get your input so they can show that there is value to keeping sportfishing alive and well.

The people at the Sportfishing Association of CA (SAC) are all on board with this survey probably. There has never been a good study done linking personal income, fishing expeditures, etc, to the total revenue produced from all sportfishing related exspenses. This includes money spent on hooks, line, gas spent travelling to fishing spots, hotel costs if travelling from diffrent cities, food, ice, coffee, offshore overnight trips, etc...

SAC is worried because they have no data showing how important sportfishing is to the economy. And that is one of the biggest things working against them in the MLPA process.

The environmentalist are trying to use this to their advantage by saying that the new marine reserves will generate X ammount of revenue for X ammount of reasons.

SAC needs to be able to defend themselves againt these kinds of attacks, and they are probably working with NOAA on this project. I haven't seen the survey myself but I know if its from NOAA that it will help us in the long term to keep fishing open.

Carry on.:cheers1:

Got mine, sent it it...and damn, if my wife knew how much I spend on fishing related stuff motor(s), gas, tackle, skiffs, food at Jeff's burgers, etc etc...she'd trip.

dude is it me or do u look like andy dick in your avatar?