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Just read the CCA proposal to auction red snapper tags. The gist is that snapper tags would be auctioned to the highest bidder, recreational or commercial...no tag and you can't have the fish. CCA thinks this will eliminate the scuffling over recreational vs. commercial quotas and would be the ultimate "fair" way to allocate red snapper.
WOW!! This idea really has a lot of MERIT!! This even one-ups IFQ's!
In fact, it has such merit that it clearly should be extended to all sorts of fish and game species in the name of ultimate "fairness".
For example, we could auction wild turkey tags, redfish tags, deer tags, marlin tags, cobia tags, quail tags, dove tags, bass tags, speckled trout tags....do this with ALL fish and game, period. By George, that's a way to generate some real money.
I know, I know...some of you might quibble that bass and deer and quail and such aren't migratory, so they shouldn't be treated this way. But, hey, snapper aren't migratory
either and Texas has to share snapper off it's coast with Florida commercial snapper fishermen. So, pish posh, you're just nit picking and you're too dumb to see the important BIG picture.
The narrow-minded and pitifully slow among you might argue that if we installed such a system fat cat commercial fishermen would gobble up all the tags and rape the resource. Or you might argue that wealthy sportsmen and corporations would snap up all the tags so they can entertain clients...sorta like they're doing with high fence ranches and purchasing all the land around prime trout streams in Western states. Again, you're being small-minded and aren't smart enough to see the BIG picture.
You're just stupid and not thinking outside the box if you're concerned that the average Texan no longer has a charter fleet so he and his family can go offshore fishing once or twice a year. Hell he's a refinery or chemical plant worker, a mechanic or some other nobody, so why should he be able to afford a prime revenue-generating resource like snapper (or deer or quail or marlin or cobia, etc.). And who cares if jerk-water little Texas communities will lose billions from the collapse of the sportfishing/hunting industries...overall the Feds would net much more from big buck commercial and corporate interests buying up these resource tags. (And, Lord knows, DC is now flat broke and needs the revenue.)
I know...some small-town, selfish, illiterate rednecks might argue snapper and other fish/game species are a public resource...sorta like national parks and national forests and BLM property. So WHAT, we've gradually commercializing those too. People who think that way are obviously old fashioned and out of touch with reality -- probably closet racists clinging to their guns, fishing rods and bibles and who ought to be on Homeland Security's watch list along with veterans. Everyone with a brain knows that a smaller and smaller percentage of our urban population cares about outdoor resources anyway, so it's time to stop letting the minority who are outdoorsmen determine how American resources are used...let's SELL those resources to the highest bidder.
The IMPORTANT thing about this really innovative plan from CCA is that it will SIMPLIFY that pesky, complex matter of fisheries and game regulation. And it will generate big-time MONEY...those commercial and corporate interests can belly up and SPEND...money the Feds will, doubtless, use ever so wisely.
By all means I encourage you to write CCA, NMF and TP&W and tell them how GREAT you think the CCA plan is and that it should be adopted forthwith.
(Boy...those CCA guys are really, really smart. They took the Obama Administration's clever and uncontroversial carbon tax idea (cap and trade) and applied it to outdoor resource management. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant -- I stand in awe of their intellect!)
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