Finchaser posted up some good reasons to get involved. I wanted to highlight them here:


[For all recreational fisherman which encompasses people who fish on party boats,charter boats and the beach. Plus most tackle shop owners fish.

I do all three, as many saltwater fisherman do. Surf is dead so we fish boats for cod,pollack,hake and ling.
Always fish boats for fluke,blackfish( fish that are good eating)
We no longer can fish for seabass, which is part of the fight the RFA and SSFFF are undertaking.

1.The commercial guys pay lobbyists to get there way from government ( large fish quota's) they want ours.

2.The RFA (Recreational Fishing Alliance) lobbies for us from the donations and memberships, thats where all the money goes.

Remember the money which goes to the economy is what government looks at. The money spent by beach fisherman is like a pimple on an elephants *** compared to boat sector. With out the boat sector we would have no quota's it would all be commercial,which government (DR. Lubchenco) wants.
The more fisheries they shut down the worse it's gonna be.

Just this year 2009 since Ms Lubchenco took over NOAA thanks to Obama (she came from PEW)
For 2009
1. Seabass shut down here
2. Red Snapper,Amberjack in florida shut down
3. Weakfish here

For 2010
a. seabass 2 months instead of 12 months
b. weakfish 1 fish instead of 6
c. new fluke regulations
d. possible new striper regulations


These are all fights the RFA is involved in to over turn,hence the seabass lawsuit against government,fighting to keep fluke and Striped bass regulations and quota the same. They fight to keep recreational fish quotas from going to the commercials and other fisheries from being shut down. There are 2 groups Recreational and Commercial period thats how fish are split up.

If we fish for them from land or sea really has no bearing we are recreational fisherman it's our quota we want to save. Remember with out bass and blues beach guy's disappear and no one would care especially beach front home owners who also support government against us with political contributions. ]