Uncovering the Realities of the Saltwater Fishing License in New York

Hello all and welcome to another episode of the New York Angler Fishing Podcast. My name is George Scocca and I am your host. So I got to tell you the other day I like the fish market at Over at North Shore Farms in Comac and I go in there a lot. So I happened to have been fishing a couple of days before that and we would see bass fishing and I couldn't get a keeper. I mean, I got 15-inch fish, I got a couple almost 16, I just couldn't get that keeper and it's very frustrating. So you go to the fish market the next day and you walk in and I could buy a 15-inch sea bass. So I had to let them go the day before but I could have bought one there in the fish market. I just wanted to bring that up because I don't know about you, but that gets me every single time. So today I'm here to talk about the New York State Fishing License that I have been talking or that I've been covering over on New York Angler for a while. Well, it's here. The state has issued an official survey and it's pretty interesting. I don't know. It's kind of like a pre-survey and then they can went to this all it is other stuff about how much money you make. I really don't know whether you need to know all that. But so I'm going to briefly go through this survey and before I do I want to make it clear that they're kind of coming at you where it's a done deal. When you look at it and you read between the lines, it's like basically you say you don't, and if you say you don't want one, they still ask you well, what are you going to do if you get one anyway? What do you want to do then? So I want to impress upon everyone and I'm not trying to influence anyone, I just want to impress upon you that there's been many times before that we have dealt with this license issue. Many times we've beaten it down and many times we did lose one time and then they ended up having to rescind the license. So you don't have to actually accept this license at all. You don't have to fill out the survey, you don't have to do anything. Bye, it is time to put up or shut up, because this the state does not put out a survey like this unless they're serious. I want to make a couple comments on the survey before. I'm gonna read some of it to you and let you know my thoughts on it. Just understand, going in, I'm just not a saltwater licensed guy. You know, I kind of fished around the coast and I see what a hassle dealing with it that it is. I mean, I look, I know other states do it, but just because they do that doesn't mean that we have to. And again, I'm not trying to influence you. I just want you to know you don't have to sit back and take it and in either case you do need to be part of the process because if you're not, you're all gonna be heavily affected by this license. You just don't realize it yet. Two things I want to mention about it before I get into the license is one of our largest growing segments in saltwater fishing in downstate New York and Long Island is the Hispanic community and this you cannot convert this to Spanish. It's just about. I don't want to, I don't want to say it was program, program wrong. But when you look at a URL that says survey one, two, one, two, three, dot, dot, dot. You know, I don't know, but all I can say is that it doesn't, it doesn't translate into Spanish and there are largest growing segments and you're not gonna hear from I don't know 10%, whatever it is of people, because they're not gonna be able to read it. The other thing is they somehow think that they're only allowing you to fill out this survey one time. Well, nowhere in there do they ask for your name or your email address or anything to confirm that, in fact, you're only filling it out once. In fact, the truth is that doesn't work. I switched to a different browser. I mean, it's literally if I wanted to, and I'm not gonna do this, so if anybody does, don't blame it on me. There's a million bots out there you could buy for probably 50 bucks that'll fill out a hundred thousand of those in one day. So I don't know how they let that, let that go, but in either case they did. So it's out the stay campy any more serious than it is, and you know that. Here's a couple of questions, right. So it starts out asking how often you do your fish, what's your primary method of fishing? And they ask well, if you're not fishing your primary method of fishing, what's your second favorite? That's why then they ask if a license were to be implemented a fee-based license how would you most prefer revenue from the license be used. So they're assuming here that you're getting a license Nowhere in there. You don't have a choice here. You could say none of the above, but if you check up you don't want a license. I'm gonna say you shouldn't have to fill that out. So they throw all these cute things out in front of you, which again, some of it I mean. I guess it's they try, but when it comes to funds in New York state, you just you don't know what's gonna happen. So when anybody says a dedicated fund, I've seen it too often the funds get raided just how it is. So they start out with do you want increased fishing access? New and improved pears, ramps and parking Sounds great. Support artificial reef development? I don't know. I see that as dumping pieces of stuff we knock down into the water and I think when we make it a reef it probably saves these companies money rather than having to get rid of it. I mean, I don't know that for a fact, but it kind of seems easier to sink a boat than decommissioning it. They talk about they want to strengthen law enforcement to ensure compliance with fishing rules. So rather than say what that means, it means hire more law enforcement. I don't think it means buying a couple of drones or a couple of dogs or something. I'm totally opposed to that. It's the state's responsibility to ensure that the laws are being enforced. It's not a recreational fisherman's responsibility. Why should we pay for DEC law enforcement when they do everything? I bet you the least they do is enforce fisheries regulations. So I mean anything environmental. That's what the DEC does. So why do we need to? I mean, why can't you think out of the box a little bit rather than hire more people? Maybe the state who's supposed to be providing you law enforcement? Maybe they could just add some state park rangers or something who move some people around. Why do we need DEC in big boats, the big expensive boats on a Saturday and Sunday running all around the place trying to sneak up on people and checking them. Why do we need that? Wouldn't it be better to check them when they get back to the dock? That's when they're gonna have to fish and not gonna be able to get rid of them. So why not, like many of these incorporated towns, that you all have their own local police departments? Maybe they should throw a few people on. Or again, why not have state parks police deal with it. I don't think that we, as anglers, should be responsible to pay for any law enforcement. The last time we had a license because we did have one a huge chunk of that money went towards law enforcement and I just don't see why we should pay that, you know. Then they throw all this stuff out about enhanced shoreline habitat, stuff we all want. I mean there's nothing on here that we don't want. We all want it all, but we can't afford to pay for all this stuff. I mean, let's face it, fishing has always been free. It's just the one thing that you know. It separates, it doesn't separate, it unites us all, from the poorest to the richest. We go down, we all do whenever we want. We wanna go to the beach and catch the line. We can do that. Now you put out a survey that they can't even read in Spanish, so I guess you don't want their input and it's only going to make things harder on everyone. Another thing to think about is yes, there are 26 out of 29 states right, they all have a license. They hit us all. Everybody else is doing it. They're doing it in California, they're doing it in Texas. Okay, that doesn't mean we have to do it in New York. We are very different Manhattan, the Bronx, staten Island, queens, brooklyn these are urban areas with people that are many people that live in paycheck to paycheck. Now we want to hit them with another tax Because, remember, this is targeted to downstate. This is not going to affect anybody upstate New York. This is just our region. So the one thing that we have right now that unites us all is we can go out there and have the freedom to fish. That's the way it's always been, and when we change that, it will hurt the local businesses. It's going to hurt the local angler that simply can't afford it, or maybe he doesn't speak English and doesn't understand it At this time where we all would inflation straight through the roof. Can we pick a worse time, anyway? So then they go on to ask a couple more questions Basically how do you want it? And it's like when you see it, you'll see what I mean Not asking you anything that's really that important. I mean, look, you want to increase ramps and piers and all Isn't that great, but don't private boaters, are they going to use those ramps or is it just fishermen? I my guess would be boaters. Probably 10 to 1 will be using those ramps over fishermen. So why do we have to pay for them, unless, of course, you need a fishing license to use a ramp? Now that's a whole different story, but that's not the case. And how does that help to serve fishermen? Not too much, right? So again, I don't know. They tell us that we should point to other states, and everybody else has one. What I want someone to do is to point to any state, whatever that is, and show me or show us something positive. That's come of it. If you look at the history of California and people like to say what happens in California, what happens in New York? California started out, I think, at $10. They're now over $60. And then you can also buy stamps and whatnot. You could spend $100 a year if you want to fish for everything. You need to keep that in mind, because what's going to happen is you're going to get the. If they stuff us with the license, right after that, you're going to be paying for stamps to keep certain fish. So if you, for what different species? That's what they do pretty much around the coast right now, so that's what they're going to do here. So you will be okay. Buy dollars for striped bass, buy dollars for fluke $10 for this and you forget to get it and you get boarded or whatever. It is a lot. One other point I do want to make about the license is the fishing industry and what it could do to the sport fishing industry. We don't know if there's going to be a blanket license for charter boats and party boats and all. I'm assuming there are, but there aren't in California. In California I know this because I fished there a couple of times. I party boat fished half day trip and this is 10, like 12 years ago was like almost $150. I mean, I had a rent, tackle and stuff but and we didn't catch a thing on the whole boat. So here, so over there, everything got raised. No one there. I talked to everybody. You could give me any example of what happened. You know what good they did with that money. And again, I want to talk about one other thing. You know you are already taxed. Everything you buy you pay a 10% tax. As far as fueling your boat and every piece of tackle that you buy, everything from a hook to a reel, everything you pay an extra 10%. That's right. That's a lot of money and that money is supposed to be doing exactly what this license they say they're gonna do. I don't know. It's double taxation. They're already taxing us for the same exact thing that they say they're gonna tax us for again. Yeah, it's just, it's the worst time you could think about. You're at the highest point in inflation and is 20 bucks. Is it gonna break our bank? Obviously not. But look at the last time we put a license in the first year we only had 150,000 people. Right now we estimate we got close to a half a million people fishing. It is gonna hurt the industry and you know what I wanna make it clear here. I don't make money on the industry, but I have a tie to the industry. They were supportive of me throughout my whole career and they helped make me a success and I'll never forget them. And they opened up my eyes to a lot from party boat charter, boat tackle shops. I know everything there is to know about that business and I can tell you the license will be a huge burden, especially in the beginning. It's just a really bad time. I mean it takes up to five years to get back to where we were, but it only kinda makes sense. You know you can't just go with anybody. Whatever you want, you have to have a license, even if it's a license for that day. You have that inconvenience and it's gonna deter a lot of people from fishing. There is, there can be, no argument for that. It will deter people from fishing. I just hope that there's someone in the state that can stand up for us and go to bat for us like we used to have. We've kinda lost that. We need someone to stand up for us. But I'm starting to go off on a tangent. I don't mean to, but you know, if we knew to right people, we could stop this thing in its tracks. And again, I'm not trying to influence anyone, but please think about where the bulk of the money is gonna end up if they stop us with it. Please think about not checking off law enforcement when you're filling out this survey. Oh, I wanna make. I wanna tell you one other thing. This is it I promise. So now you gotta have a license right. You gotta make sure you got everything. You gotta make sure everybody on a boat has a license. You gotta make sure and you know the time it's gonna come where you forget to ask if they have a license or whatever, and when they get on your boat you are gonna be responsible, because as a private boat, you are responsible for all the fishing on your boat. If you're on a party boat, the party boat captain is not responsible for all the fish, unless he's holding them in his containers. So if that makes any sense, all right. So yeah, oh, and, by the way, only fill out the survey once. You can easily just keep doing it and doing it, and doing it. But don't do that. Don't do that please. I mean, hopefully someone is listening and they'll get that fixed, but in the meantime, stop by mlaanglercom. We've got a lot of talk about the license there, as well as some great fishing information, and we're always looking to help folks. So, look, folks have a great. Gonna be a little tough to get out, I know on Saturday I hope to be going flukin' so get out as often as you can, and God bless America and God bless us all.