Those crying about the "Proposed" Tourney fee's

[MikeAxsom]

Eric, stated the way you just did, I am in agrement with your position on fees of all types. It should never be acceptable for one person or group of people to force another person or group of people to pay for their recreation. That is what I see as the primary fault of tax based recreation. But I'm not sure that is really what is going on with this fee. I think your research on the matter should include checking what the DNR and the Natural Resources Commission have in their own study materials that led to the establishment of the fee in the first place. I've been in some of those types of process, and I'm pretty sure a plan to just rip off tournament anglers to help fund some wild-hair idea elsewhere would have a very hard time getting through the process; despite what some guys on the internet, or at the bait shop might tell you.

[hardestyeric]

Mike,
That was more or less the point of my last post. The entire time I have been trying to find where these extra fees for tourneys where coming from. Someone has been kind enough to enlighten me and I'm fine with it. Ray presented the material in a way that would lead you to believe that the increased tourney fees were to help the overall resource and not just to cover the cost of the tournaments themselves. If it has to cost more to play then so be it. As long as the cost is spread to the users that are benefiting from it.
Eric H.

[MikeAxsom]

Eric, I have to say that I don't know the reasoning behind the new IDNR tourny fee myself, and was not involved in how it came about. My observations were intended to be about the process that I havee seen in these tings for many years in the business.I see IDNR today growing toward a more user focused funding model, i.e., specific fees for specirfic activities, and I assume this fee is in keping with that trend. At the same time it is true that any funds that get addd to the total dollar pie will benefit all of the resources under IDNR management. For example, if a fee for boaters was to be implemented specifically to build modern restrooms near ramps, that would also benefit bank fishermen that use the same area. In other cases it is just a matter of a tagged fund freeing up some other money for an unrelated program or project. It is all part of the same plan at some level.