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Article Last Updated: 1/12/2006 07:49 AM

Tight Lines: Even with a $2 bump, fishing license still a bargain

By Brett Prettyman, The Salt Lake Tribune (www.sltrib.com)

Anglers often say they enjoy fishing because it allows them to get away from the daily grind and forget about everything heavy in their lives. That is usually the case for me as well, but sometimes I appreciate the depth at which fishing allows me to ponder issues - in this case a proposed $2 increase in the cost of a fishing license.
Such was the case last weekend while nearly being blown across the ice at Fish Lake. I bought my new fishing license last week and headed to southern Utah.
Battling the cold and 50 mph gusts, I found myself still feeling guilty about spending only $26 for a Utah fishing license. The onus of getting something so valuable - 365 days worth of fishing and countless memories - so cheaply only intensified while pulling in perch, splake and rainbows through the ice.
What is fishing worth to anglers? A heck of a lot more than $26 for many when you consider the enormous amount of dough spent on rods, reels, lures, boats, Fish Finders, underwater cameras and taxidermy mounts.
A $2 increase is less than a dozen night crawlers or wax worms and less than one-quarter of those sure-thing Lucky Craft pointer lures that anglers pay out for fall fishing at Strawberry. For comparison's sake, consider that the average ticket price for one - just one - Utah Jazz game is more than $50. Is watching the Jazz play for 2 1/2 hours worth about twice as much as a year's worth of fishing?
But perhaps because they spend so much on other aspects of the sport, some anglers say the proposed $2 increase to the fishing license for 2007 is too much. Also, overall hunting - the Division of Wildlife Resources also has proposed an increase in those licenses - and fishing numbers continue to decline across the country. Many believe an increase, even one as small as $2 a year - that's less than half a cent a day, by the way - will prevent even more people from buying a license.
Avid anglers will continue to buy a license despite such a slight increase, but some worry that those who only buy a license for one or two trips a year might decide it is not worth $28.
Michael Styler, director of the Department of Natural Resources, says the increases are needed to help cover proposals by the governor for long-overdue increases in state employee benefits and pay. All state agencies must find a way to support the proposed increases; for the DWR, that means raising license fees because 92 percent of the state wildlife management agency's budget is based on fee revenue. Anglers also may be paying more to launch their boats in 2007 because State Parks and Recreation managers are in the same situation.
Other agencies, even others within the Department of Natural Resources, rely almost entirely on the general fund. Styler said the cost of hunting, fishing and launching a boat or camping at a state park will continue to rise in response to budget needs as long as the two agencies rely so heavily on license and use fees.
"That's the problem with funding the division through license sales - the more you charge, the fewer the people who buy licenses. It won't work anymore," said Ed Kent, chairman of the Utah Anglers Coalition. "The fact is that everyone in our state benefits economically from our wildlife. Another simple fact is that most of those who benefit from wildlife aren't paying to support it. We've either got to establish more stable funding soon for the DWR or redefine what we want from the agency down to what we can afford."
Look for the debate to expand as the 2006 legislative session gets under way.
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Contact Brett Prettyman at brettp@sltrib.com or 801-257-8902. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

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