Yes, Henry, there’s a reason you have to buy a license.
Dear Henry:
I’m glad Mrs. Bozka picked up the phone, called me and put you on the line with me. You’re the third kid in your class, just in the last six weeks, who has wanted to know why you have to spend money for a fishing license.
I know you work hard, and you don’t make a lot of cash. You hear that fishing is a “free sport,” and in many ways it is. But, you do have to pay to get into the stadium, and there are, like I told you Friday, a bunch of good reasons for that. It may not all be “fair,” in terms of who pays, but like I said, they are good reasons, and it’s a good thing that people like you and I are here to pay for them.
Many things in life indeed are not fair, Henry, and the fact that fishermen … and hunters, too … have to pay virtually a hundred percent of the bill for protecting our natural resources, is one of them. Of course we should pay; after all, we go to the bay or lake hoping to catch fish. We might keep them, take them home and eat them, or we may just catch them for fun and then let them go. Sometimes, the law may require that we let them go … but as is the case with fishing licenses, again, there are good reasons aplenty why certain sizes of certain species of fish cannot be legally retained.
But that’s another subject.
What we were talking about Friday is sportsmen’s money, cash that is supposed to be a “user fee” paid in return for the privilege of fishing. Usually, the money is spent just that way, the way the politicians in Austin and Washington tell us it will be. Unfortunately, sometimes, some of those politicians find really creative (also known as “convoluted”) ways to siphon money away from our specially-dedicated user-fee monies. When that happens, it makes me madder than a tail-hooked jack crevalle.
Along with a bunch of other things, concerned fishermen and hunters just like you and me have been fighting that battle and many others just like it for a long, long time. And we’ll have to keep on fighting those battles so long as there are politicians who are willing to take money away from the place it’s supposed to be and allocate it to places where it is not.
In other words, forever. It’s not their money, Henry. They just act like it is.
But that, too, is another subject. What we talked about is why we have to buy fishing licenses.
I don’t have the spreadsheets and budgets in front of me, but I can assure you that the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department does a pretty admirable job of spending the money it collects from us outdoorsmen.
The bays and lakes we frequent, in some ways like golf courses, must be maintained. That’s why golfers pay greens fees and membership fees, to keep the golf course in good shape, and that’s why recreational fishermen pay license fees, to keep the lakes and bays in good enough shape so that when we make the time to go fishing, there are indeed fish there to catch.
Fish need quality habitat … clean water, aquatic vegetation, oyster reefs, bay-to-Gulf passes that let the fish migrate, and much, much more (including biologists and game wardens) to have a healthy home in which they can thrive. We pay for that.
Fish need help now and then, especially bass in freshwater and redfish in saltwater. They are both really popular species, and millions of anglers fish for them. The fishing pressure is so strong, Henry, that we have had to build hatcheries … some of the most celebrated hatcheries in the world … to see to it that populations of bass, speckled trout, and so many others regularly get a manmade “shot in the arm” that helps boost their populations. They are not healthy and numerous by accident.
I spent last Friday at Sea Center Texas in Lake Jackson, a Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) hatchery and education facility that depends on not only our money, but money and support from private industry … companies like Dow Chemical, Anheiser-Busch and local power and electric utilities… businesses that provide everything from cash to volunteers in order to keep our hatcheries cranking out fingerlings and stocking our lakes and bays. Volunteer groups like CCA (the Coastal Conservation Association, SCA (Saltwater Conservation Assocation of Texas) and SEA (Saltwater Fisheries Enhancement Association), Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF) and many others make many important contributions to the conservation effort as well.
We need boat ramps from which to launch our rigs. We need docks around those ramps from which to fish, and in some cases, parks and piers that allow us access to quality fishing. We need people to build those facilities, and to then maintain them. The money for that comes from us and us only, Henry, which is the “unfair” part I mentioned on the phone.
Lots of other species benefit from what sportsmen do to protect and perpetuate sport fish and sport fish habit … and even those boat ramps. Ramps are used for ski boats, too, you know. But don’t forget, boaters who buy outboard engines pay, through specially mandated “excise taxes” on their engine purchases, too, more funding that has to be protected as well, lest politicians take some of that money for other purposes … purposes that have nothing to do with fish and fish habitat, usually going to “general” funding).
All kinds of “nongame” fish and shorebirds benefit from the protections we afford, everything from pelicans to seagulls to kingfishers, black-necked stilts, blue herons, green herons, reddish egrets, roseate spoonbills … well, I’d better stop before this turns into a birdwatching story.
Because it’s not a birdwatching story. It’s a story about how birdwatchers get to watch birds for free, because they say that birdwatching is (not my favorite term) “nonconsumptive” recreation (yet another story in its own right).
Some years ago, TPWD printed up a bunch of “birding stamps” for birders to buy, just like your “saltwater stamp” and “bass stamp,” and for duck hunters, the state and federal waterfowl stamps.
The birding stamps did not sell very well, Henry. Matter of fact, bird stamps barely sold. They ended up cleared out at a fraction of their value.
So, we continue to pay the money that birders, many pleasure boaters, sailboaters, hikers and so many others “users” and “enjoyers” usually do not (and in the case of “nongame” stamps, apparently will not) pay, and our contribution benefits every creature out there, in environs both fresh and salt, in the field and in the water.
If you want to know more about how your fishing license money is spent, Henry, call the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s toll-free information hotline (1-800-792-1112), punch “O” and tell the operator you want to talk to someone who can tell you where your fishing license money is going. Better yet, call your local congressman or senator, or write them an e-mail.
You put your money there. You have a right to know how it is being spent.
I’m really proud of you for doing the right thing, the legal thing, the ethical thing, and buying that fishing and hunting license. It’s good for fishing … but most of all, it’s good for the fish and the waters in which they live and spawn.
Keep a tight line, Henry, and call me if I can ever help tell you where the best fishing might be at a particular time.
Those trips you make with your family and friends, I guarantee you, are worth a million times as much money as that new fishing license.
Matter of fact, they are priceless.
Your friend,
Mr. Bozka
P.S: Keep up those good grades. A good job will pay for a lot of good fishing trips … and fishing licenses.
Howdy. I am 
Great commentary to our youth - they simply do not understand how important their contribution is when they obey the laws in place and your explanation is very clear, not condescending in the least, and goes a long way toward sharing with them a lot of valuable information that their parents, relatives and peers certainly are not doing, as far as I can see. Thank you for taking the time to respond to these young men, they need good role models!