Written by Rep. Leila Percy | 03 February 2010

Maine has a long tradition of allowing anyone at any time to throw a fishing line off the wharf, the dock, the beach and the boat to fish recreationally in salt water without a fishing license. That changed in 2007 when the Bush Administration moved to require all states to institute a salt water fishing license (National Saltwater Angler Registry) for recreational fishing by January 1, 2011.
To be clear, a state can choose to not create a state salt water fishing license. If any state government chooses not to create their own license the citizens and visitors to that state who engage in recreational salt water fishing will still be required to pay for a salt water fishing license. This is clear as part of the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act that President Bush signed.
Therefore, the only difference between the state passing legislation to require a salt water fishing license or not, is whether recreational salt water fishing licenses in Maine will be more or less expensive, whether Mainer's will be allowed to pay less than out-of staters, whether municipalities that must issue these licenses are adequately reimbursed for their time and administration, whether Maine will have easy access to the data collected through the program and whether more money from Mainer's pockets will end up in D.C. or in Augusta and therefore back in our fishing communities.
There isn't any question about which of these choices is best for the people of Maine, for Maine's recreational and commercial fisheries, and for Maine's economy. It should be obvious to anyone that given this mandate from Washington, responsible legislators who value and wish to sustain Maine's fishing heritage must pass legislation for a recreational salt water fishing license.
We must do this to assure that we can set the price as low as possible for residents of Maine while still providing enough revenue for the administration of program; so that we can provide exemptions for elderly residents, for children under 16 and for passengers and crewmembers on board a vessel captained by an individual who possesses a Tidewater guide's license, or on board a commercial "partyboat". The state fishing license would also exempt people renting smelt shack from a commercial operator.
We must do this to assure that a salt water fishing license bought in Maine to fish in Maine's waters goes toward sustaining Maine's commercial and recreational fisheries and that the information gathered is directly accessible to our Department of Marine Resources. I am not suggesting that D.C. would fail to share this information with Maine when necessary, but I would rather that Maine be the source of information for D.C. when they want it than vice versa.

Maine, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only coastal states in which a salt water fishing license is not already required or about to go into effect. Maybe Rhode Island and New Jersey don't mind letting D.C. control their coastal recreational fisheries and take all the revenue generated by the license the federal government mandates they have, but the people of Maine are smarter than that. With a little bit of effort in the next few weeks we can better protect this resource, make the mandate less onerous on Mainer's and tourists alike, and take another step to protect Maine's fishing heritage.

As always you can contact me at 207-389-2133/e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Stay well,