Matthew Dickerson, Reprinted from the Addison Independent, February 10, 2000.
As I've mentioned before, although the world is full of people who like to complain, there are very few who like to listen to complaining. For that reason, I keep my own grumbling to a minimum. When I do gripe, however, it's nice to have those gripes answered as quickly as they were in my previous column.
Two weeks ago on a Monday evening I typed out my biweekly outdoor column in order to get it submitted by the Tuesday deadline imposed by the slave drivers at the Addison Independent. My regular readers may remember it was a bitter complaint about the lack of snow this winter. However in that brief period between when I submitted that article and when it appeared in print, my complaint had already been answered with a foot of fresh white powder unloaded on my lawn. Within a few more days, another storm had dumped eight more inches--resulting in some of the best cross-country skiing in two years.
Now that's just the sort of positive response that encourages more complaints. So in that spirit, here is a list of some more gripes to help get the year 2000 underway: Vermont's ten-trout limit is way too high for the new millennium. Our rivers just can't support so many people (tourists as well as residents) taking out that many fish per day. It might have been fine if the state's population numbered in the tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. But with the fishing pressure today, we need much more restrictive management policies. There have been too many times I've come upon an angler with a stringer full of freshly stocked trout in May, then returned to that same river in June to find it devoid of fish.
Along those same lines, it's time the state increased the diversity of fishing experiences. I'm in complete favor of giving anglers the freedom to keep an occasional trout from waters with a healthy population that can support it. But what about a small collection of quality rivers designated catch-and-release only for anglers who'd don't care about the meat but would like a better experience with larger, warier, wild trout? Unfortunately, the effort to restore the famed-but-now-decimated Battenkill by making sections of it catch-and-release has run into unexpected resistance. Along similar lines, we could use some sections of water with a creel limit of one, or with slot limits. I'd also like to see Vermont follow the lead of many of our neighboring states and designate some waters as fly-fishing only, or artificial lure only. Again, this is not to punish bait-fishermen, but simply to broaden the diversity of experiences available.
On a whole different track, I'd also like to complain about the number of hours in the day. Speaking of complaints, my wife complains that I have too many hobbies. She says I've added a new one just about every year since we've been married. Now I happen to disagree with her counting method. For example, I don't count archery as a "new" hobby. It's just an extension of my current hobby vaguely known as "shooting"--a hobby I've had for years, although until recently it was restricted to guns. Similarly, I wouldn't count deer hunting as a new hobby (even though I had never done it until a couple years ago). Still, I can see her point. There just aren't enough hours in a day to do all the things I want to do. In fact, there aren't enough hours in the day just for all the fishing I want to do. Would anybody care to do something about that?
While I'm on a roll, I'd also like to complain about the high cost of sporting equipment. There are several new fly rods I'd like to own, but the price tags have too many zeros on them. In fact, there are several new hobbies I'd like to take up as well. I think a pair of snowshoes would be a nice supplement to my cross-country skies. And a mountain bike would look very nice next to my touring bike, as would a kayak next to my canoe. Oops. Did I say "new" hobbies? What I meant was some slight variations to my existing hobbies that I'd like to try. The Lord knows I don't have time for any NEW hobbies.