Posted on 07/05/2010 6:35:50 AM PDT by Willie Green
I received several e-mails from Steve Pennaz of the North American Fishing club. Pennaz is a great guy, publishes a great magazine and also serves as a great source of information on the world of the outdoors.
In Pennaz’s e-mail, he explained how fishing guides operating on federally classified navigable waterways needed a Coast Guard Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel license in order to be legal.
Pennaz went on to say that the Coast Guard was going to make it easy for the guides with a new program offering special limited licenses for certain bodies of water.
What a great idea. Hold on a second. It’s “déjà vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra said once. In 2007, I wrote a series of columns on this topic and I am confused.
To begin, a federally navigable waterway is one in which a vessel can travel to an ocean.
The Fox Chain is considered to be one of these waterways even though the system of dams in the Fox River make a journey to the Mississippi an impossibility because most of the dams do not have locks.
You would think that the Fox should be removed from the government’s list, but that takes an act of Congress and it isn’t going to happen. So it stands that any fishing guide operating on the Fox Chain needs a charter license such as a Lake Michigan charter captain does.
In 2007, I wrote about this and it caused a lot of heated debate. I didn’t, and still do not believe, that a Chain guide needs the same license as a Great Lakes guide.
The license is hard to earn, requires an expensive class and has some severe restrictions. The license exam is a tough one, and I truly respect all of the captains who have passed it to earn their licenses.
The reason that I chose to write about the issue is that the Coast Guard was operating a boat on the Chain under the auspices of Homeland Security and checking guides for licenses.
In researching my columns, I spent a lot of time in contact with the Coast Guard. To be honest, I found a lot of misinformation about the subject.
To make a long story short, the Coast Guard finally decided to make a concession for the Chain guides. They were going to offer limited operating licenses for Chain guides just as they do for other guides on a number of other federally navigable waterways. Although the licensing process is tedious, it was better than having to work toward the full Captain’s license. I was proud of the work I had done.
I guess my work wasn’t good enough. In the ensuing years, I found only one gentleman who has his limited license.
The other guides either continued to illegally fish or left the Chain to guide on other waters.
Fast forward to today. I find Pennaz announcing the limited licenses as if they are some new invention.
Well, I guess they are, as I have found that the U.S. Coast Guard’s entire limited license program had been canceled a while ago.
Here is what irks me the most. It is almost impossible to find any information about laws on OUPV license for fishing guides operating on certain inland waterways.
There are guys out there hiring themselves out as guides who are on the wrong side of the law and don’t even know it. This is serious stuff, because they are messing with the feds.
Secondly, in my extensive discussions with the Coast Guard, they promised me that I would be kept in the loop on about these policies and also on anything pertaining to the Chain or the Fox River. I never have received information from them. No phone calls, no letters, no e-mails.
Now, I find from my own research that the limited license program already has been canceled and they are considering putting it in force again.
I find this to be absolutely insane. This policy that is presently in force is hurting us in northern Illinois. Have you seen many ads for guides that fish the Chain? Neither have I.
Most guides have moved north, across the border to Wisconsin.
In order to keep legal, the one-time Chain guides are offering trips on Silver, Brown Twin, Delavan, Geneva and other southern Wisconsin lakes. Does this have an economic impact in the millions of dollars? Probably not, but these days every dollar counts.
If you go to Wisconsin, you aren’t purchasing an Illinois fishing license. You aren’t buying bait, gas or tackle. You aren’t stopping at an Illinois restaurant for breakfast, lunch, dinner or a beverage. The next time you want to go fishing, you probably will just go back to the Wisconsin lake that your guide had taught you about. That is a crying shame.
“Plug the damn leak!”
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