Conservation

Conservation as part of recreational fishing is obviously a very big topic and would take a long time to discuss. Rather than explore it in a broad way I wanted to mention a few things that occured to me while reading an interview with the outgoing director of the Texas state fisheries, posted on bassfan.com. One of the things he mentions is consumptive rather than recreational management of fisheries. The definition is obvious, as are the implications, yet the odd thing to me is how little acknowledgement anglers actually get for upholding and promoting the policy. I mention this because of the all the recent controversy over the recent formation of the Intra-Ocean task force. The implication seems to be that recreational anglers are as responsible for the overfishing of certain species as commercial fishing. The other compelling matter to me is angling pressure. He mentions that as angling pressure increases, as it must with an increase in population, the greater the need will be for stocking bass. He says that the concerns are more on the level of habitat, but he doesn't elaborate (is it a matter of polution?). I imagine it has something to do with the shift in climate, global warming and the like, and I mention this only because he also said part of the reason that lakes like Falcon and Amistad are fishing like entirely new fisheries is because of the change in water level, growth of new weed cover, and subsequent creation of new habitat for bass. Whatever the case, it is an ever-changing phenomenon and can only be managed with a dynamic outlook toward the future.