Reel change
Older teens, 16 and 17, can fish for free but must still acquire a licence to do so
Nova Scotia has announced new regulations for anglers, including bag limits and allowing older teens to fish for free.
Allowing teens aged 16 and 17 to fish for free is a good change to the province’s angling regulations, says the president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Anglers and Hunters.
“If you lose them at that particular stage of life it’s not always going to be easy to get them back in their 20s,” Travis Mcleod said Thursday.
Until now, teens had to buy a licence once they turned 16. While they still need a licence, they won’t have to pay for it starting this year. It’s one of several changes announced by the province for when the general fishing season opens April 1.
Mcleod said that when kids go fishing with their parents or grandparents they develop the interest in the sport, but when they turn 16 and can drive, a fishing licence can sometimes fall prey to budget cutting. And if they don’t have jobs, it falls to the parents to pay for the licence, which can be expensive.
“Right now the average age of anglers in Nova Scotia is 58, I think; we have to start doing something now if it’s not too late,” he said. “We have to start building from a young age and give them every opportunity to get out there and enjoy it, and then when they get a real job or go to university they’ll be ready to buy that licence.”
He said he likes that the teens can fish for free but still need to pick up a licence.
“It allows for tracking how many of them are fishing, and they put in their numbers of and track what they’re catching, so it’s educating them on how to get their data into fisheries in order to be tracked, and being part of
the overall conservation of a species, as opposed to just a consumer.”
But he said he’s also concerned about why people in their 20s and 30s aren’t fishing as much as they once did.
“If we can maintain them for that additional two years into adulthood (from) when they’re 16 and 17 instead of losing them to girls and drinking with their buddies, hopefully that will retain more of them in their 20s.”
Graham Greene, the owner of Fishing Fever Fly & Tackle Shop in Halifax, also likes the measure.
“It might encourage kids who don’t have money to fish, and also we’ll get some more reports of what they’re doing,” he said. “I don’t think it will take away much income (from the province), and hopefully encourage someone who can’t afford it.”
The province has also increased the daily bag limit for pickerel to 100 per day this year, from 25 in the past.
Mcleod said he has heard some
concern expressed about that.
“There’s always a possibility when you do something like that, that it might be giving people the idea that they can go out and start catching these and perhaps selling it for bait,” he said.
Doing so is illegal, but he said some federation members are still worried that it might happen.
“I can’t imagine anyone going out and trying to catch that many pickerel. I’m not sure why that number was chosen,” he said. “From the perspective of (the federation), I hope it doesn’t create a wastefulness. I hope people won’t go out and try to take 50 pickerel out of a lake in anticipation of trout and landlocked salmon coming back, because that’s not what’s going to happen.”
He said that creates a situation where people may catch the fish and throw them away instead of eating them. It’s illegal to waste a fish by not eating it if it is caught and kept.
Greene said it would be a challenge to catch that many fish in a
day, but pickerel are tasty.
“They’re very good eating. They’re boney, but as long as you’re aware of that and know how to prepare them, they’re good eating.”
The province also extended the season for smallmouth bass on some lakes.
“If it doesn’t hurt the population of bass, then ultimately it’s extending seasons, it’s extending opportunities to get out there and fish, and hopefully taking a little more money out into our rural areas,” Mcleod said. “I don’t think they did it to be an economic stimulator, but in the end you can’t argue that there will be more money spent if there are more opportunities.”
Greene said he expects high fish numbers in the lakes may be the reason, but he would like to see the season extended across the province.
Other changes include reduced bag limits for trout in some areas of Guysborough, Cumberland and Antigonish counties.