Current Fishing Issues in Government! Biologist Explains...

On today's episode  ⁨@txprolake⁩ dives into the current angling issues that are being discussed and the bills in discussion in Washington DC that could impact anglers and fishing. 

📌 Important Links:
https://fisheries.org/sfrbtf-state-fact-sheets/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8195?hl=cormorant&s=3&r=1
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/2293?hl=cormorant&s=3&r=2
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/8876?hl=fishing&s=2&r=6

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

All right. Welcome everyone to the Tears Thanger Podcast. And welcome back to a new segment of The Real Biology. As always, I'm your host, Bailey Eichbrett, and joined with me is our fisheries biologist. Let's just do we just gotta call you the legend at this point because you're just no, no, no. No You're you're the guy of the industry. You're on like three million podcasts a week. You're everywhere, everyone knows you. You're just like you're just big pimping walking around all these events.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I think I think what's happened is I've reached a saturation point to where nobody wants to actually hear me talk. I'm so surprised we even have an audience at this point.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Uh we have an audience because you got the brains, bro. Nobody wants to hear me talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Um very fast as a podcast host is that no one's there to hear you talk. It's all about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I I listened, uh I tuned into your channel, the Be the Fish, and uh listened to your assessment of the hummingbird uh live imaging stuff. And I I loved your content. I hear you talk on this episode and on your serious angler, and I'm I'm still tuning into your stuff. So I don't know. There's something about like whenever you resonate with somebody's personality, it doesn't really matter the content they're creating. You just want to check in on your buddies and you want to hear what they have to say. And that's unfortunately where we've landed with this show. We're not gonna grow an audience. These are just mine and your friends and family listening to us blabber on about whatever topic we decide.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, I mean, we're down to just my mom now because she's the only one that truly loves me. Uh my grandma, she ditched the episode because she says summertime, she's busy, she's on vacation.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I don't know. Every every Monday evening or Tuesday morning, I do get a text message from a couple of different people uh about the episodes. So I know that we have an audience of like four.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

There we go. We're growing, baby.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, did now I know you went to iCast. Did you pitch our audience of four to any company?

SPEAKER_02 2:09

I did. I did to a few.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

And they laughed?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

They said, Yeah, you guys are a joke. So nobody cares about bass.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Uh no, that's not true. What they said was um, as Kin Duke has said to me, is uh conservation is just not sexy. There's nothing cool about it. There's no there is no way to build an audience around it.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

That is one it's like one of the terms that uh Matt Lardinwell, who's the owner of Amped Outdoors, he said that is the hardest thing with batteries to sell because no battery is sexy and no battery is ever visible to the public eye.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

That's right, that's right. Yeah, so um but at so at iCast, you were there. Um, I sent you a text. I said, Did you go down the conservation corner? And you said, No, I didn't know it was there. So even at iCast, they have a dedicated area for nonprofits, state agencies, um, you know, organizations like Mighty River Recovery. We had Joe Baylog on um, you know, last year. His organization is at iCast. They have a booth, they're there, they're talking about the issues. And you were at iCast and you didn't even know it happened.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

No, I didn't get to walk the show as much as I would like to. Uh, but for what I did, I never even noticed it and it wasn't broadcasted. I wish I did because we would have been over there, uh, but did not realize that was even a thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yeah, that's um that's the hard part. And they've been doing that. Um, I'm gonna say like the first one I remember. It's probably before this, but like 2014, maybe 2013. Um I can remember, of course, Florida uh is is typically there, the agency, uh, South Carolina usually has a booth there. But I know like this year, Arizona, Arkansas, um, sometimes uh you might see people from like Texas from the Share Lunker program there. Um it's it's been it's been growing the the conservation side of it, and of course the nonprofits, like I mentioned. Um so there is kind of a section of iCast now to where those groups uh they have some booth space and you know, hopefully they can leverage iCast for some sponsorship, some funding, some product, uh, you know, just relationship building, uh, but also leverage it to create some partnerships. Um, you know, I think of the stuff like we're doing at Major League Fishing with Fisheries Management Division, Bass does with Bass Conservation, uh, you know, with groups like Yamaha, Wrightwater, Aftco, like those are those relationships do come from a place like iCast from being at um, you know, these similar shows and then talking about shared values and use of data and uh you know mobilizing anglers and creating spokesmen that are gonna discuss conservation topics uh with their audience. And I think that iCast is a good place for that. And I'm glad to hear that the conservation corner continues. I just wish that it was maybe more visible.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Yeah. No, I agree. Again, it's it's one of those things that relates to a lot of lanes of life, but like the most important things seems to be the least appealing that people want to actually talk about or put priority of importance on.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

I hear you, I hear you. Um and you know, that's basically why our show exists, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah, that's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

You know, and we try to bring the all the topics to our audience all the time and make sure that you're getting a background in everything that's happening in today's show is gonna be pretty similar to that. Um, it's gonna actually embody that because I like I said, I watch a lot on YouTube, a lot of my buddies. I see that everybody's covering iCast right now. What's new, what's coming out. There's been some there was some cool stuff um on the iCast front in the conservation world. Um, of course, you know, I'm I'm partial to some of the announcements from Bubba with the score tracker live being available to everybody. Also the the integrated measuring board that now will link straight into the app to where you know people like you that are competing on a length-based system. Bubba now has a solution for that. I think that that's great. Um, but I feel like iCast was being covered so thoroughly from everybody else that you and I could maybe cover something a little different. And so when we were discussing it, I threw out the idea of let's talk about what's actually happening in legislation. Like what are the current bills that are sitting in either the House or the Senate that are gonna impact the tackle industry, impact the fishing industry, bass fishing as a whole. Um you said let's try it. So today's episode, we're gonna do that. We're gonna do something totally different.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Um, I think too, it's important for people to know that maybe they're not in the industry um or they're kind of curious about these topics in general. I mean, uh the audience that listens to these shows in general. Um, so the same people that put on iCast, ASA, American Sport Fishing Association, they're also the same group that puts on the summit in the fall. And for those who don't know, the summit is where like all the meaning of the minds of all brands in the industry come together to talk about various departments of the industry, from the the marketing to the demographics of fishing and how to get all groups more involved in fishing and make fishing a better place. And but there's also a lane where there's also people on the ground in it in DC that are fighting for you know, whether like the things that we've talked about so often of uh from salt to fresh of you know, access to law and regulation to protecting just our general freedoms to go and hunt and fish and things like that. Um, they're the people that are that are doing it. And I do appreciate, and I remember the two summits that I did go to uh was the groups talking and sitting down and having a meeting with everyone there of like what are the current things that they're talking about in DC to protect us as anglers. And that's sounds like that's exactly what we're getting gonna get into today is like what current things are being discussed. Um, but I just figured that general understanding is sometimes iCast can get a bad rap, but the same group that puts it on is the same group that's also fighting for all of us. So kudos to ASA for Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

And look at iCast, uh, you know, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation uh partnership, they do a conservation summit lunch at iCast every year. And they do it with the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation and the ASA. They put on a lunch, they have speakers, they talk about issues, they invite representatives from the different brands to be in the audience or to be on a panel. Um, so this year one of the topics they were discussing is reservoir habitat and how important reservoir habitat restoration is. They had professional anglers, they had um they had members from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, like they they had people in the audience and in on the panel to discuss the issue, where we need to go and how the industry can support it. So all these things do tie together. And I think that probably the place that we should start um is not a new legislation, it is it is the primary funding mechanism for fishing um and our fisheries management agencies. And every every five years uh the Dingle Johnson uh act is is gonna need to be reappropriated. And so we're on that cycle right now. This is this is the year that Dingle Johnson um gets refunded. And Dingle Johnson is it happened in the 1950s, an act in the 1950s, and then it was expanded in 84, and basically it sets up the sport fish restoration dollars, and then the 84 amendment added the boat trust fund. Okay, and I sent you a link. Um, American Fisheries Society sent out um uh like they did a dedicated web page for where is your sport fish restoration, where is your boater trust fund money going per state? So, how it works, um basically there's an excise tax that was set up by the Dingle Johnson Act. This excise tax goes into all your fishing gear. Um it is collected and distributed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and they distribute it to the state agencies based on the number of license holders they have, uh the percentage of their population that is a license holder, as well as their uh use of the funds. So we can click in uh if you're on the AFS website, which link I'm sure Bailey put in the description somewhere, you can click into your state. So if we're trying to help Bailey, we're gonna click into New York, and you're gonna get like a simple PDF that talks about from 1950, uh the money that's been provided to the state, and then where it's actually going in New York. What are they doing with the money in the state? And so you can do that for every state, and that will be reappropriated this year in September. They'll vote on it, it'll pass, it will not have any major changes. Like there's nothing we need to do as sportsmen for this. Um, it's it's kind of baked into the cake that it's gonna happen again, but you do need to be aware because this is this is like step one of making sure that your agency is funded and able to do things and and kind of where you can check and see what is actually happening with that money locally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yeah, this is actually it's very interactive map too.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Um click on your state, look at it. Um, of course, if you if you work for an agency and you're listening to this, you're like, yeah, I know, because I had to help put that together. Um, but if you don't work for an agency and you're kind of questioning, like, well, what you know, what do what does my state prioritize? This is a one-page sheet.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

So this is actually pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

This is you could but you can imagine, Bailey, like you click into a state, whatever's in that one page, that is what your agency wanted to be the headlines coming to you. It's like they filtered down everything they did over the last five or six years or decade uh into these kind of bullet points of here's what's important, here's what we did with that money, let's reappropriate. So you can see where your agency's kind of priority is. Yep. So I encourage everybody go check it out. Um, you know, it even if you don't live in a state, like like clicking into another state and reading about what what is happening there, um, of course, gives you a better idea of how your state compares. And if there's ideas that you maybe want to bring to your local agency, like this is a great place to start.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

What is shocking to me here.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

That I've I just looked at. If you told me this without seeing this broke down right here, is there are 2.2 million anglers, state and non-state, above the age of 16 that fished in New York in 2022. 1.9 for Texas. That is I would have never believed you if you told me that.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, and I mean that's there could be um I'm sure that's just going off who bought licenses for New York. Yeah, it's who bought licenses, and it there there could be some slight rule. There could be some slight rules that allow for um a higher number of anglers to have a license. So I don't know, I don't know y'all's state regs, but you have an age where you're required to have a license, then you have to also look at are you required to have a license to fish in on private water versus public? Um, because you know, if you are required to have a license to fish on private water, then that could mean that you have more anglers signed up because there are a large percentage of the fishing population that never actually fishes public water. And if they don't need a fishing license because their state doesn't require it, then they're not really adding into that side of the system. Of course, every time they buy any gear, that adds into the excise tax, which comes right back to the agency, but they're not directly buying a license necessarily. And then the other thing you kind of have to look at is does the state have an auto-renew feature on the license? Somebody might not be fishing anymore, but it's still but are still participating because they own a license. There's also lifetime licenses, so you got a lot of you got a lot of things that happen, but it um I I am not necessarily shocked by that. I'm I'm working on a project right now where I'm looking at um historical uh tournament weights, and I'm using our our MLF database, but truthfully the FLW database. I'm going back into like look at the 90s or early 2000s and looking at weights, and there's so many data points that I needed to narrow it down. Um and so I chose to just do five states. And whenever I chose five states, I did Florida, Texas, uh, Tennessee, Alabama, and New York, because those are where I felt like our participation was absolutely the highest. And New York is kind of rising currently, but um New York, I think that you underplay how important fishing is to the culture of that state.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Yeah, maybe it's just because I don't see the quantity, like when I travel out of state, especially to states you just talked about, like Texas, Alabama, and especially like Tennessee, Florida, the Southeast in general. There isn't a single fishery I go to where I'm the only one there. Where there's plenty of times where I go to places in New York and I'm the only one there. But I often neglect sometimes thinking about the whole eastern side of the state, the salt water aspect to the state. That can definitely have a heavy factor in there. Um I I would also be curious, this doesn't have me nerding out on just ideas, but like where where is the I know you could probably never get this statistic, but the non-resident stuff, where are they mostly going? Because I'd probably argue it'd probably mostly like be like St. Lawrence and Champlain stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Oh, yeah. Um I think that I think that that information is something that could be derived. Um we've worked in the past uh using geofences. If you if you look at the state of Iowa, uh for example, Iowa uses a geofencing technology to assess where anglers are coming from. Um so it could be done to where you could you could basically geofence any reservoir, or for for you guys in New York, it could be you know just a natural lake, but you could geofence it, and then the software you would put in a date range, and it would tell you how many people came from what counties across the US. And you could really look at and compare two fisheries um or two areas of a of a water body, and you could you could figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

That's that's super interesting information for me. Um okay, I didn't mean to totally derail us there. Uh great.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

So this AF uh American Fishery Society resource, it's in the description. Go check it out. Dingle Johnson will be reappropriated uh this September, and we'll kind of move on to uh a couple of legislative items that I think are interesting topics that are coming up for the first time or coming up in a new way for the first time. How about that? So uh want to talk first about Camarant. It's a Camarote is uh a bird protected by the Migratory Bird Act, and there's there's dozens of species um of Camarot throughout the United States, and they do migrate. But I think that you in New York and me in Texas, we both can give examples of times when Camarot populations are detrimental to either the fish, fishery, or environment around a body of water. Like um, I'm sure y'all have seen ruckeries where the hundreds of camarads might be nesting and they'll defoliate an entire island whenever they do that.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

There's Cormorant Island on St. Lawrence River that's painted white.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Painted white, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

And so you can smell it from a mile away, depending on the wind direction.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Well, there you go. Um that's that's a heavy nutrient load, that's heavy use. Uh so you're you're defoliating that island, but you're also uh uh you know changing the pH of the soil and therefore the runoff, changing the nutrient load that's coming off of that island. Um, you know, there there are things that we're concerned with both with water quality and environmental impacts of the birds. There are two unique um legislations that are sitting in our house currently. Okay. Uh the first one we're gonna talk about is HR eight one nine five, which is called the Responsible Comrade Management and Control Act of twenty twenty six. And the link for this is uh is also in the description, right? Like you're gonna put all these in there. Okay, so it's in there. So this is uh proposed by uh Representative Bruce Westerman from Arkansas. It was introduced in April. Um there has been a little bit of movement where it's in committee right now. Um so just so you know, a legislature, like if we go back to like School of Rock days, right? A legislature writes a bill, they propose a bill, they get a co-sponsor, they take that, um, it then is assigned to a committee. The committee reviews, they have whatever subcommittee review they need. If if the committee passes the bill, then it's brought before the entire floor. Um, if it's approved by the floor, then it leaves chamber, goes to the other side. So, of course, it could come from the House or the Senate, uh, goes to the other side, gets put into a committee there, is reviewed, brought to floor, voted on. If both sides vote on the same bill without amendment, um, it then goes to the president to be signed. If the changes occur, then it goes back to the other side until they they come out with the bill. So in April, um this this bill was proposed. And basically, what it's gonna do is it's gonna require U.S. Fish and Wildlife to coordinate um with four regional flyway councils, and they would establish a management framework that would create the ability for control and take of double-crested camarads. So one species, double-crested camarads. Um, and the the object of this bill is to protect our public fisheries resources. So it's in committee right now. They will be gathering information on it. Um, so far it's it's got pretty positive feedback, but the unique parts of it is it will, because it will have regional um flyways, it will define who has authority to assign take of commons. And that authority will likely go to a state agency, and then the state agency may have the ability to uh then allow for something like licensed um hunters could hunt comrace. Um, they may have the ability to allow private individuals to take Conrads on the private waters that are around a public reservoir. And the idea would be just to depopulate to a manageable population so that we don't have some of the environmental impacts. That is sitting in the house right now in uh in the natural resources uh committee, and it would be under the subcommittee of water wildlife fisheries. You the link is going to give you access to the actual congress.gov website, and you'll see that it's just been introduced. It hasn't passed the House, hasn't passed the Senate, so it's just been introduced. You can follow that bill following this link. You can read the entire bill if you want, um, but you can follow it as it moves through committee, see when public comments are are needed, um, contact, it'll have the contact for your representative. So because it's in the house right now, if you wanted to contact your representative, you could click in, figure out who that person is, and send your comment on this bill to their office.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

All right. Now there are there's an additional bill. Um it was first the HR 2293, which is the Comrade Relief Act of 2025.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

That's a that's a House bill, but it passed the House. And it passed the House in December. So now it is Senate Bill S 1255, still the same name, Command Relief Act of 2025.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

And so for real fast, if you're people, including myself, as to go house, senate, what is the chain to get?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

It can go either way. Okay, can go Senate to House to um it doesn't matter. So um the bill's proposed, it goes to floor, it gets assigned to committee. Committee votes on it, then they take it to the entire chamber for vote. Um I'm not going to lie. I believe because it's a non-funding bill, it requires 60% uh vote. I may want to check that though. Um but 60% of the chamber votes says, yep, we approve it. So then it would go from House to Senate or from Senate to House. This one specifically. So whenever it's in the House, it was HR 2293. The second they approve it, then it goes to the Senate. Well, then it gets reassigned a Senate number. So Senate 1255. You're gonna have the links for both. You can look up either way. If the Senate changes it, then it would it would get sent back to the House. If the Senate doesn't change it, they just approve it as it stands, then it would move to the president to sign for uh to become a law. So it in the House it um it passed, it went through the Natural Resources Committee, passed the House, and so now it's in the Senate, in the Environment and Public Works Committee. And it's been read twice in the in the committee. Uh so that's a good sign because when they read the a bill through, um, that's one of the steps to kind of decide if we need to make changes to it. Um what this bill does is a little bit different. Um prior to 2016, um U.S. Fish and Wildlife could appropriate the take of Camarant's to a state agency. And the state agency would take Camarants mainly from hatchery facilities, so that we would use it just to protect our hatcheries. And really weren't weren't focused on on public water, we were just focused on hatcheries. That uh in 2016, the ability to do that um got changed. And so what this bill does, both the House side and the Senate side, is basically retroactively takes us back to the 2016 law, allowing for agencies to take comarants from hatcheries, but it also expands on that, allowing for those agencies to give authority to commercial hatcheries and private fish farms. So we we've had Josh at Red Hills on this. So if we go back to just the 2016 law, uh Josh lives in the state of Georgia, uh the hatcheries in Georgia. So if we go back to 2016 law, this the state of Georgia can control Commorants on their hatcheries, but Josh's hatchery, they can't give him authority to control. He would still have to work with U.S. Fish and Wildlife directly, um, and may or may not be allowed to control Comrade's, depending on several uh factors. What this would allow would be the agency to give Josh authority to control comrade on his hatchery. So that's gonna increase our production of fish, which does have an impact on the public fisheries resources. Josh's hatchery, Red Hills, sells fish to multiple state agencies. The state of Arkansas just did a stocking um within the last week. I saw a post about a stocking that undoubtedly came from Red Hills. But other hatcheries exist, like American Sportfish. American Sportfish supplies uh several agencies. We did a project with American Sport Fish in the state of Louisiana. Like I know that this is going to impact our public fisheries indirectly just because the production of fish would improve. The last part of it, um, the words private fish farms leaves some room for interpretation that let's say you owned a one-acre pond on your property, um, that could be considered a private fish farm, depending on how you're using those fish, um, if you're consuming them or not. So there is a little bit of a gray area that may mean that somebody as a private landowner could also receive authority from the state agencies to control Commons on their own property. Um so the the first bill we talked about, uh the HR 8195, that's going to allow for take from licensed hunters. This one would allow take at hatcheries. And because they're fairly unique, it is not likely that they will be absorbed into one bill. They will not become one Comrade bill, but it's still possible. Um but both of them are the second one, it is technically further along because it's made it through the House and it's sitting in subcommittee or in committee uh in the Senate. And you never know, Bailey, um, when one of these is going to be brought forward and actually be voted on. So if you want to follow that one, um, I recommend following it as the Senate Bill 1255. That link is of course in the description. Um, of course, there is another avenue where a bill literally dies in committee.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

So if the if it does like it's been read twice, like if it doesn't get approved and come out of committee, then when the congressional session ends, the process starts over.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

So the there is a time-bound issue here where some of these things they they could just never actually happen just because they're not on the high enough on the priority list to actually get a vote.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

But as an angler, um, we get questions about commorts periodically on this show. And uh, you know, I have that discussion, of course, with private lake owners and with our a lot of our pro-anglers realize the impact of Comrades because they just see it. They travel the country, they see it everywhere they go. Uh so they they understand uh both the environmental impact and and the potential impact on our fisheries, and you can understand why hatcheries specifically, we know we're putting uh you know millions of dollars into hatcheries every year, and those juvenile fishes as they're growing out in the hatchery ponds are pretty susceptible to common predation.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Yeah. And so is that more impactful on bait fish, or will they eat like panfish, bass, all that stuff too?

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Or absolutely trout, um, you know, you think about your trout supply. Uh so anything that's not indoors, uh, anything that's brought outdoor for grow out, so how the hatchery systems work. Um, there are some fish that you can propagate, you can spawn uh artificially. So you can do what's called strip spawn. Um your trout, your salmon uh are often strip spawned. So you take two adults, you pull them out of the water, and you you physically push eggs out of the female, um, and then you do the same thing, and you you get the milt from the male. It's um fish gametes are activated with water, so you can like strip them into bowls, and then you can then add water and then combine them when you're ready. They don't they don't live in the environment for long, um, but you can you can basically do it at a timed process, and then you could take them and put them in a jar um that has aeration and keep those eggs moving, or into trays that will keep those eggs moving and allow for oxygen to pass through the egg and the egg to develop, and you know that's how we would mechanically spawn fish. So that's usually done indoors. As those fish hatch, they're fry, they're then at some point taken outside into a grow out facility. Um, so that's an open-air pond. A lot of those have like netting over the top of them uh to prevent birds from coming in because we know this is an issue. Um, some of them are so large that we don't have the opportunity to do that. And then your some fish, like largemouth bass, you can't strip spawn. So what you have to do is you have to pair them. So if you go to like uh Texas Parks of Wildlife, Athens Fish Hatchery, um, the Texas Freshwater Fishery Center, you'll see the giant raceways um where they have spawning mats, they pair the fish off, um, and and basically they just check the mats for eggs every single day. Once they see the eggs, they remove the mat, they wash the eggs from them, they put them in the jars, and they do it that way. Uh alternatively, if you don't have an indoor facility, you do that just out in a pond. You match a couple bass, you put them in a pond, you let them spawn, you sane out the adults, you let the fry grow out. All those are options. But you have a life stage of you know, basically post-fry until they're grown out to the size that that can be stocked, and that that might even be a fingerling size. Um, so you could be talking a month to three months out in a grow-out pond.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

And three months in a grow out pond, that that's gonna produce fry-sized fish or fingerling size fish that can be stocked. If you want to then subsequently grow them to a catchable size, now you have to start adding food to the system. Um, you know, if it's if it's catfish or trout, you know, you may have a prepared diet that you're gonna feed them to grow them out, but that could extend the duration in the pond from three months to six months. So any of, you know, if you guys have brown trout, um, rainbow trout, stockings, you got a fish truck that comes, like all those are hatchery-raised fish. All of those were uh, well, I'm not gonna say all of those, most of those were outdoors at some point in a grow-out pond, and were therefore susceptible to avian predation from comarants.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Uh so it's a big, yeah, big money saver and big environmental saver.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

Yeah. I guess I would love to pitch the question to you of as a fisheries biologist, in your opinion, are cormorants more detrimental to a body of water or do they have any sort of benefit?

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Oh, that's a great question. I mean, uh, of course, I think that the it would be hard to pick a species that doesn't intrinsically have some sort of benefit to the environment. Right? Like we know that if and we're just talking theoretically here, but we know that if we didn't have predation, at some point the system becomes too abundant in fish, right? Like pick any level. There's a carrying capacity for things like oxygen. Um, there's also, as you increase your density, you're gonna have the uh the spread of both disease and parasites more quickly. Like those are if predation was gone completely, those are the things we would be concerned with, is that we're just gonna reach a biomass, that we're gonna hit carrying capacity, and then we're gonna have dramatic fish kills because the environment has to regulate for what it can actually support. That's our systems are way more complex than that because there is predation. There is predation from fish, uh several mammal species, of course, humans, as well as avian species, and even some reptiles. Like we have predation that occurs. We also have natural mortality that occurs. So comarants probably fit into the ecological system and help suppress um especially certain size classes or species of fish at times, that is probably beneficial. They are um a host species for numerous parasites. So, just as I said, like as we increase our density of fish, we're likely to have more parasites. Well, when you have a host species that's bringing parasites into the system, uh, that's that's not really helpful either. The wider issue is not really on the fish population outside of the hatcheries. Like, outside of the hatcheries, um, we get enough natural reproduction, we have enough habitat diversity, we have enough uh movement of fish that comrades aren't going to come into a large body of water and make an environmental impact on the fish themselves. The impact becomes more on uh on these large systems, on wherever they're roosting and nesting. Because of their waste product and their large nest, and how they they do so in a group, they defoliate the environment and they will, like you called Comarant Island, I believe is what you said. Like Comarant Island is the poster child of the environmental issue that Comarants actually produce on our large water bodies. Um and and bird waste in general is is very nutrient-rich and can lead to a lot of issues with like cyanobacteria, which is a harmful algal blend. So then that indirectly changes the fish population because that can be toxic to the fish, it can also be toxic to humans, um pets, and it it that is a real issue. So whenever we talk about any of these, uh I would never like look at a single species and be like, it is totally bad or it is totally good. Like situationally, there's there's a lot of different things that are happening there. The the other issue is um you're gonna have an educational gap because this is very narrowly focused on double crested Camaros. So other Camorant species and even lune species um are going to be subject to potential accidental take. You have, you know, if we if we go the route of every hunter that has a license is allowed to take 10 Comorons this year, there will be a percentage of those, it may be a small percentage, that accidentally take uh a non-target species, which is protected by the Migratory Bird Act, which should not have been taken. Um and we will have to work through that. Um, and it'll be our state, our our state agencies that'll have the authority to figure out and work through that. Or uh, like we talked about, those regional councils, uh they will they'll look at what's Are are most at risk and how do we protect them?

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Got it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

What else do we have, Steve?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

All right. Well, if you want to do one more, there is a non-Comraunt one that I thought would be fun to cover. It's a House Bill. It's House Bill 8876. It's going to be called the Aquatic Invasive Species Control and Prevention Act of 2026. So this one is Representative Tim Wahlberg introduced it. So he's from Michigan. And the the focus is it's really going to be about these aquatic nuisance species like your silver carp, your big head carp, even your zebra mussels, things that are entering systems, being established in those systems for generations, and then causing an issue long term. It is not a new legislation in the fact that it is going to amend a previous aquatic nuisance prevention and control. That was 1990s. And it's just gonna expand to create task force so that we have better collaboration among U.S. fish and wildlife and state agencies as we start talking about species that are moving through systems that are not bound by a single state. So let's talk about like Mississippi River. Mississippi River is as we as we think about the Mississippi River, if big head cart, which they did, get introduced in the Mississippi River, they impact several states. How do we um create some sort of group, working group, that would monitor and alert upstream, downstream? Here's what we're seeing with the spread of this species, here's what our control methods are, and let's work together. It also allows for um better competitive grant programs and actually establishes just under $50 million to be used from 2026 to 2031, so five years, over five years to use for research and control and coming up with a better mousetrap for how do we monitor and prevent the spread of invasive species.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

And so what does it say anything species specific that is like highlighted in this as like a target? Or is it this is just in kind of in general?

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Oh, that's a great question. So it it does target uh specifically your big head and silver carp. It does target zebra mussels, basically the species that we're aware of now that we are already having to put control methods towards. Um it doesn't take into account like one of the invasive species that we often talk about here is Alabama bass. Like it's not gonna take into account Alabama bass because that's a regional species issue, not a national issue. Um, at least as defined, like it's not it's not um it's not easily spreading across the United States. It's requiring us as anglers to move it.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

So this is nationwide then like Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

All these are nationwide.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Um in regards to the native the invasive species that applies to each state.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Right. So it's it's actually gonna these the countries already kind of divided into six management areas. Okay. Um so it's gonna it's gonna codify that. It's gonna make those six regional management panels um formal, so where those task force are always working in those areas. But it's it is, let's see, I'm gonna try to think. Um it's gonna make to where your state agency has a inspection and decontamination protocol for boats. Like it's gonna make um those things standard. So like clean, drain, dry. Do y'all do that in New York?

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Yeah, so you're supposed to across the board, uh, only specific lakes, like finger lakes have like stewards on site to try to like, I guess, enforce that, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Yeah, so it's gonna make a statewide the panel, the panels are going to give instructions to agencies on how they could structure their statewide, as well as what you just said, like there's the finger lakes, the finger lakes are a basin area. The finger lakes may have a special definition that extends beyond um what the New York statewide clean drain dry would be because of a specific impact species that's there. But it's gonna all it's gonna give your agency the resources to know what other agencies are doing uh within that region.

SPEAKER_03 49:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah, and it's um yeah, it's both it has a lot of it has a lot of support um because it's it's a bipartisan bill. It has like the National Marine Manufacturers Association, has U.S. Fish and Wildlife support, has Department of Interior support. So it looks like it just has to run its course. Um it is currently um actually sitting in the transportation and infrastructure uh committee of the house. So under natural resources, transportation and infrastructure, because the uh like we think about the cart specifically, like that's not just an angling issue or an environmental issue. It's also because a lot of these waterways are used to transport uh cargo, it is it's a navigational issue. So it will get broader support because of that. And that one, um they just had a hearing this last week, like on Monday, I think, uh to discuss it. So it's gonna, I would imagine it's gonna start moving pretty quickly through the House. Uh once it hits the Senate, then they'll slow down and they'll they'll go through uh the same process again.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

So this um well, this these documents that we're putting in here, will that do they keep updating as there's been more meetings that people can actively check back on stuff like this if they're curious about it?

SPEAKER_00 51:23

You can check back. Um, like I said, you can you can read the bill. Um, you can look at all the actions where we are, you can sign up for alerts. So if there's just one of them that you really want to know more about, you can just sign up for the alerts and they'll send you an email every time something happens with it. Um, this, you know, we talk a lot on this show about like how do I get involved? Well, there's there's a way to be actively involved, and we've talked about you know volunteering and going to uh public hearings and really being engaged locally in your district or within your state to make sure that your fisheries are improving. Yeah, this is kind of the opposite end of that spectrum where you maybe don't need to be actively engaged, but you need to be aware, and at times you may need to be proactive in the fact that a simple email to you know a member of the House or the Senate um just explaining that this is important in your region to them may give them the insight to look into it, pay attention to it, go to a committee meeting that they're not on committee for, or they'll send their staff more likely, they'll get their staff to interact on it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Yeah, this is um two.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

I mean, two that I feel like a lot of people talk about. I mean, we've done research shows on the carp specifically, too. Like in the QA, we talked at length on the carp. Um, right. Obviously, grass is a big one that we still are getting more questions of people asking about talking, us talking about more uh the vegetation topic. Um yeah, the cornberry one is one too. I've always not to totally circle back, but one I've always been curious about is like, how in the heck does this bird get protected?

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Because well, a lot of anglers are all migratory thing. All migratory birds are protected by the migratory bird act. Um, and and the truth is that there was a time and not not too distant a past where we were hunting birds at a level that was not sustainable. And the migratory bird act was needed uh to protect um multiple species, and that protection um did extend into um waterfowl that maybe we weren't hunting um for food or for recreation, um, and they they got protected. And comarants are kind of on that list. Like I don't I don't really know of people that are hunt were hunting camarads for food or recreation. I think that that was just a species that existed that that does migrate. So there are parts of the US that are essential for camarads to to nest. The current status is we have both migratory and resident birds. There are birds that live um in parts of Texas year-round. They don't leave. Got it. Those those birds, and as we establish larger and larger populations, are causing an issue. So we have to do something environmentally. Um the US is not unique in this situation. There are the Comrad legislation in Canada uh is always changing as well to allow for the take, and they actually allow for a greater take than we do currently. Um, you know, so as as conflicts arise, legislation has to be built, and that's where we are. Like this episode is is all about how the sausage is made. Like we are anglers, we want to go catch the you know, five biggest fish or the biggest fish, or whatever we're gonna do. Enjoy just time on the water. Well, there's a lot of things that go into it. Um, from the funding side, protecting the environment, um, just the use of water. There's you know, if we wanted to talk for four or five hours on this subject, there are bills that are appropriation bills or reappropriation bills like the farm bill. Um, there is there's several. Um there is, of course, a bill about um securing and protecting the rights of sportsmen um in the use of lead tackle and not allowing for um uh you know a bill to be passed without scientific evidence of of issues from lead. There's there's a lot of little bills, uh there's a lot of water use bills, there's the reappropriation of uh the money for the Army Corps of Engineers. Like there's there's a ton of those kind of bills that are that are passing through as well right now. I picked the Comarot and the Invasive Species because I thought that they were interesting and maybe something that that wouldn't be talked about um anywhere else. This is the only, I'm gonna say the only show, especially in the fishing industry right now, that's having this discussion. Um but those other bills, some of them are just baked in. They're they're gonna be reappropriated, they're they're gonna continue. There doesn't need to be much discussion on it, because it's just gonna happen. Something like these comrade, these comrade bills or even this invasive species. I I feel like the invasive species one is is pretty much gonna pass with with limited to no issue. Um, but it's it's always good for us as sportsmen, anglers, to go ahead and pay attention to these things. Yeah, and the older you get, the more you start paying attention.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

That that seems to be the truth. Uh entering my boomer phase. Uh but yes, there you go. I love it. Well, Steve, this is good. Uh, people, if guys, if you have any questions, because there's a lot to download here. Like you said, we said there'll be the links uh down below in the description if you want to read some of it for yourself, uh especially that interactive map so you can kind of see what your own state is doing wherever you're hailing from. Um but uh if you guys have questions, email, DM, comment if you're on YouTube or Spotify. I know Apple, unfortunately, there's no question feature or comment feature to say. But if you have questions, uh hit us up with those, and we can kind of go into more detail if if we need to. Um but anything else for the folks, Steve, uh, on this, just to take away from with these two different deals early in Washington.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Yeah, I think you know, follow the links, subscribe uh to get notifications on them if if you're so inclined. And as Bailey said, uh, you know, he's of course saying, hey, let's comment if you have any questions. How about comment if this was actually informative or entertaining um so that I can push Bailey to let us keep doing really nerdy in-depth stuff?

SPEAKER_02 58:45

I'm all for that. I don't care if they comment or not. Uh it's let's let's rip selfishly. Let's just do it. Um we have a lot of people that are very, very um in tuned with the real biology segment and excited for it in regards to. I can't tell you how many freaking DMs. We joke earlier about my grandmother being the only listener, but we do get a lot of DMs from people uh saying how absolutely love what we're doing with the real biology segment. And so thank you to you guys that send that feedback because it's much appreciated. Um and it's cool to see that a lot of the common angler folk like myself are very uh interested in it, even if they don't have that uh biology background. And it's good to see that the everyday angler is is interested in this sort of thing, and obviously it shows that um people are looking out for the right things when it comes to the world of bass and well, fishing, I guess I should say in general.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

Absolutely. Yeah, and it's I feel like it's growing. I feel like the sentiment is growing every year. Um we have to be careful, you know. It's one of those things like at Major League Fishing. I uh often remind our team like when we're competing, and you're you're seeing it now, you're seeing with uh the score tracker live coming out, the Bubba scales, the Bubba board, we are working towards competing with as little impact on the fishery as possible. You know, to and and some Englers, gosh, this is could get into a debate really quick. If you enjoyed this episode and you don't want to talk about catchway and immediate release, you should stop now. But um some anglers see the weigh-in as like a very important part of bass fishing tradition, and it is, it's part of our heritage. But I see catchway and immediate release beyond the fact that it that it changes delayed mortality and allows us to have a uh you know a fair sport where we know the score and and all those things. What catchway and immediate release, what you do on a kayak, what MLF is doing um with score tracker, beyond anything else, allows us to compete on fisheries year round, no matter what the conditions are, no matter what this season is for the bass, and know that we are having the least impact possible, and also allows you to compete on fisheries that have restrictive regulations. So anyone that has um a slot limit, a protected slot limit, those issues go away with a catch, way, and release format. Any area that has seasonal restrictions on putting fish in a live well, those go away using these formats. And whenever we're talking about this internally at Major League Fishing, one of the points that I make all the time is we we need to, as an organization and as uh competitors, leave the fisheries as good as we possibly can. But as we're growing and we're getting more people that are becoming interested in fish conservation, we also have to understand that we have a social responsibility to participate in the harvest of fish. Tournaments are not the right place to do that. You're trying to put the five biggest fish in your bag for the day. The five biggest fish are not the five that should be harvested.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

But you own a fishing license, and a fishing license allows for you to take fish to consume. And the fine, delicate balance we have at like Major League Fishing right now, and we have in this this whole community, is that we have to reshape our thought process when we're competing versus when we're recreationally fishing. And we have to do just as much recreational fishing with harvest as we are doing competition. We're harvesting a different size class of fish. And there are uh extreme situations where we have things like Alabama bass, and truthfully, like agencies need to be moving to where you have a 10, 15 unlimited fish allowance of Alabama bass coming out. And we have a lot of situations where because of the need to protect fish from tournaments, we have slot limits or we have very restrictive harvest regs that as catch and release format becomes more popular, we actually need the regulation chain to change so that we can harvest more small fish uh in our recreational times. So uh I think my point here, Bailey, is like this show, yes, we're trying to like push and become uh you know, an authority and a voice, somebody that can help you understand these complex issues as the popularity of fishery science is growing, but you're gonna have to enter this conversation understanding that it is going to be very complex, and you need to be able to articulate why a seven-pound largemouth caught in New York has to go back into the water within a couple minutes, and at the same time, why uh a pound and a half Alabama bass needs to come out and be consumed.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:01

I I I started thinking about that when you were talking about it, or it's like I think Alabama bass, there shouldn't be a limit, and it should almost be like, in my opinion, kind of like what happened up here with the gobies was like if you do catch one, you have to like almost kill it on site. And I feel like it should be like that, but then you run into the as we've seen with the Dakota e-bear catch in the classic, is you have all this confusion on identification, and you want to don't want to have the wrong species being harvested or just killed on site, like we're talking about with the gobies. Right. Uh yeah, the truth is But I'm not the one making the decisions there.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

Yeah, because Alabama bass can hybridize so readily with especially smallmouth, um, when they enter into a system that has smallmouth, that mutt phase begins almost immediately. And some of those individuals really uh you know, given enough time, they become very exceptional, uh, like the like the e-bear fish. Um and that that is a unique challenge uh because you know, right now across the country, the you have your state agencies that manage your fisheries, they have a law enforcement division. Uh most of them are under the same department, but sometimes they're not, but you have a law enforcement division that enforces the regulations. Well, a regulation can only be enforced if you as an angler and the and the um agent can identify the species that you currently possess. So you get into this gray area, Alabama bass. If Alabama bass and spotted bass are in the same body of water, you're not gonna be able to tell the difference. If Alabama bass start hybridizing with your largemouth or your small mouth, now you what are you gonna call it?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Uh so it is very challenging, very difficult, and that is why you don't see, or not the sole reason, but one of the reasons you don't see just the regulation being you can harvest all the Alabama bass you want. Um even, even you know, to a novice angler, a adult Alabama bass and uh you know, a moderate-sized largemouth could look enough alike that they can't tell the difference. And you don't want to, you just especially novice anglers, you don't want to put them in a position uh to where they are harvesting fish thinking they're participating in a sport that they're just learning, and then they get a big citation because they harvested the wrong fish.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

Yeah. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

We got a lot to teach. Um glad to be back on uh regular cadence again.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

Yeah, we're back. We're back, we're back, we're back. Heck yeah. Well, Steve, thank you again for the time, my friend. Always a pleasure. And uh folks, appreciate you guys tuning into this one. Again, if you have topics and stuff that you want us to cover off on, we gotta bring the hate of the lake hotline back to these shows. Uh, because we've we've I think we've missed the boat, and I have missed the boat on that the past few shows. So get those in. We'll pitch those over to Steve. So have your question featured on the show every episode. Uh, but uh anything else for the folks, Steve?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:34

Not at all. Um, go enjoy some fishing. It is beautiful summer weather out there. Go do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:40

Heck yeah. Folks, appreciate y'all. We'll see you guys on the next one.