East of Boston

Something Fishy This Way Comes

As I watch the Colonel grab his Shakespeare and head off to the beach for what experience tells me will be a fruitless night of surfcasting, it dawned on me that this could be the last summer of free fishing. Next year, you will most likely need a license to fish these waters.

This isn't so bad on what I will refrain from calling the surface. We've needed licenses for freshwater fishing since God knows when, and it's not as if the Taliban took over or anything. Not even the wildest militia types have seen the need to kill ATF agents over their inability to get free pickerel from yonder fishin' hole. Shellfishing and Lobstering are also licensed, and no one has saw fit to dress up as Naragansetts and dump enough littlenecks into Boston Harbor to make a 100000000000000 gallon vat of clam chowda.

The freshwater fishing license fee does a lot of good for the fishes. It spawns a cottage industry of tax-funded folk who scout local lakes to make sure that you have your fishing license, based on the vicious circle of governement logic that brought you the RMV. The scratch collected from salt-water licensing does NOT go to the fisheries. It is instead sent to the Treasury, who will use it to kill Muslims and fund man-man marriages.

I'm no expert... tagging along with the Colonel on his fishing trips lost any appeal it held about 30 minutes into the first time I tried it. I don't like to go into boats, because they sink now and then. I'm even allergic to most seafood, although I do recognize and respect the culinary impact of le poisson.

My research tells me that this licensure is happening because NOAA flexed some muscle and got a national license movement going. This is called the Magnuson-Stevens Act, basically because the Blood From A Stone Act was used by the British during the immediate pre-Revolution era. The goal is to improve catch statistics, among other things.

If Massachusetts isn't playing nice by 2009 (a waiver extended this to 2010... you'd be paying right now if the federal government wanted to play hardball), the feds will impose their own licensing program that will most likely cut the State House out of the plundering.

Most of the cool kids (states with ocean borders) now have federal-standard-meeting licensure programs.. those states being Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Delaware, North Carolina, California, Washington and Oregon.

New Englanders- who were ready to secede for financial reasons during the War of 1812- have stubbornly resisted the program. We live and die by our fishing. This paper is partially named after a fish. Gloucester fishermen have fed the nation for decades, and are the last barrier preventing Gloucester from being known as the Knocked Up 15 Year Old town. Samoset- who basically saved the Pilgrims- picked up his subsequently critical English from fishermen. Captain Ahab and Quint were just local boys chasing big fish.

If you tried to tell Captain Ahab that he needed to support the AIG bailout before he could grab himself a bluefish for supper, he would most likely have kicked you in the testicles with his petrified wooden leg... before turning you over to Queequeg for a good bit of South Seas-style sodomy. I wouldn't recommend taking this course of action with a Conservation officer, although I can see a few of them getting beaten down when they try to take the Other White Meat out of someone's Fishermen's Platter. If Conservation officers are one day armed, this may be the thing that spawned it.

More importantly, this law knocks away one of the last truly cost-free resources available to a regular guy. Yes, they have now found a way to tax the very fishes in the sea. You can almost see jogging falling out of fashion in fear of an impending Breath Tax.... which will eventually go to fund Dirty Coal's attempts to enrich .0000009% of America's population by sawing off mountaintops and poisoning Hatfield/McCoy drinking water.

Ever since wandering Mongolians populated our continent, you could generally grab a fish out of the ocean whenever you needed one. It's not like you're grabbing a future Nobel prize winner or anything... fish pretty much adhere to a strict eat/swim/fuck schedule that leaves little time to alternative pursuits.

Things done changed, though. The little man doesn't own the water. As near as I can tell, Nantucket Sound exists to either A) make cash for a windmill company or B) serve as a private sailing lake for the uberwealthy. I may be wrong, but I think that forces more powerful than Finance would get involved if I suddenly decided to build a house on giant stilts off of Hyannis Port.

The professional fishermen most likely won't care, although it may hamper/help charter guys in some manner that I can't think of right now. My guess is that the dominant emotion on this one down on the docks would be one of generally hating to see Washington sticking their landlubber noses into the salt water. The government has done so well regulating the fishing industry, you see...

A Few Fun Fishy Facts:

- The administrative fee will be in the $15-25 range, with most people I know seeing it rise substantially as the government looks for people to squeeze in the future.

- I have no idea if your North Carolina saltwater license will be good if your Mayberry ass is up here trying to fish during your Cape Cod vacation. I know that I had to buy New Hampshire freshwater licenses (from my teacher salary, 10 kids/$15 for one-day non-resident... grrr) when I took my students fishing in Canaan, NH.

- Here's the state's view...  Mass. Division of Marine Fisheries: Recreational Fishing - Salt Water Fishing Derby

- The Massachusetts record for the heaviest striped bass ever caught is 73 pounds. The world record is 78, from Jersey. Science says that they can grow to 100 pounds, and live to be 40 years old... especially if they swim near wherever the Colonel is fishing.

- 1600s Plymouth established a free school with money taken from the coastal bass industry.

- Striped Bass have gone through periods of both Plenty and Scarcity. No catches of striper were recorded in the Boston area for 30 years following 1897. They came back big in the 20s, and fell off again in the mid-70s. The stock had recovered by 1995.

- The voracious Bluefish is the only fish known to kill just for the sake of killing. They are also cannibalistic.

- A five foot pine Sacred Cod hangs in the Massachusetts State House, to remind legislators of the importance of the fishing industry. When it was stolen in 1933, the House of Representatives declared that they would not legislate without the cod being present. The Massachusetts Senate has a corresponding Holy Mackerel.

- Cape Cod was named by Bartholomew Gosnold, for the great abundance of fish found there. Martha's Vineyard is named after Gosnold's daughter.

- The heavy Portuguese presence in Massachusetts can be directly attributed to old-time immigrants flocking to a burgeoning fishing industry. Most current Portagees here now are descendants of these fishermen.

- Salted fish of the lowest sort from New England was a main food source of West Indies slaves.

- Two of the top five impact players of American literature (Moby Dick) and filmmaking (Jaws) involve Barnstable County residents who just won't give up on the damned fish.

Feel free to comment. I'm not the expert on this one. My role is to Inform as best I can, and to provide the forum for expression.