I was wondering if there is any body out there knows of any organizations that support sportsman in indiana. I was looking around and the The Indiana Sportsman Roundtable web page has not been updated in quite a while. I was wondering because after reading some of the comments in the lake permit question, i believe that there is a need for a group to speak out for sportsman's rights. It seems there are advertisements for a number of political groups that advocate one position or another on tv, internet or the paper. It seems that money or political influence is king now more than ever, so wouldn't it be important to have a group advocateing our rights or goals as sportsman. A web page that i looked at said there were 450,000 licenses sold in indiana last year. If a group got half that on its membership role and charged a small membership fee, that would allow a significant amount of money to donate to specific politicians who shared the same goals as sportsman. If we do not have anybody advocating our rights than we are left to do what some politicans belive is right or do what somebody else has paid them to believe. If we do not speak up and somebody else talks, then more than likely that position will be the one that is taken.

There is such a great economic impact that sportsman deliver to local economies that i believe that politicans do not realize. In the last issue of the gad about, it talked about 2.3 million dollars to local economy for the Crappie USA tournament and how they might not come back in a few years because of the increased fees. I have no problem paying for my share of the outdoor activities, but i am afraid it will get to the point where persons are out priced of doing what they love. If it comes to that and revenues drop than where will the money come from to fill the shortcomings. It won't and there could be massive cuts in services that we may need.

If there is an up to date conservation organization group that is out there i would be glad to hear about it. If there is not does anybody know what it would take to create one. I have researched it seems to require gaining non profit status with the state and fedral government. I look forward to your response.