Another Take On The Fishing Ban Story

[Bucktail]

Obama fishing ban story spread by Glenn Beck, ESPN needs to fire Robert Montgomery

March 11, 9:48 AM Charlotte Fishing Examiner  Jeffrey Weeks

ESPN has backed off of it’s misleading and irresponsible story which suggested President Obama was considering outlawing recreational fishing, but the Obama fishing ban story continues to spread among anglers and create a firestorm of anger and misinformation.

Amazingly enough, although I took to the internet immediately to correct this terribly irresponsible story by ESPN writer Robert Montgomery, I seem to be among a few scattered voices of sanity in a bewildering mass hysteria that is now fueling news reports and right-wing outrage.

At this point even though ESPN has acknowledged their mistake and the White House has officially dismissed this growing urban myth, it continues to be make waves among anglers as first Rush Limbaugh and now Glenn Beck have cited the absurd story as fact and repeated this false rumor on air.

“I told you a year ago this would happen,” said Glenn Beck on his broadcast yesterday. “No more fishing. Really? Yeah, apparently some environmentalists want to save the fish. Forget about the frickin' fish. People are losing their rights. Who's more important: the fish or you?”

At this point ESPN needs to immediately and loudly apologize to the American fishing community for publishing this harmful and damaging story and Robert Montgomery should be fired from ESPN.

Let me give you the background on how this urban myth was given life by ESPN and then spread across the nation by right-wing hysteria.

Two days ago Robert Montgomery published a story reporting that the Obama Administration had ended it’s public comment period on a task force that will eventually give some recommendations on saltwater fishing.

That’s it, at least for the truth part. Anyone who has followed this story knows that what this task force will ultimately recommend will likely involve some broad suggestions for ways to manage offshore ocean saltwater fishing stocks, if it goes that far.

Robert Montgomery, however, insinuated in his ESPN article that President Obama was about to ban recreational fishing.

Here is what I wrote, the same day, almost immediately after this incredible story hit the internet on ESPN’s official website:

“In what may be the worst example of outdoor sports reporting in the history of America, ESPN has claimed that President Barack Obama is on the verge of banning recreational fishing.”

I then went on to carefully debunk this false report.

Incredibly, Robert Montgomery himself attacked me for the story in the comments section of my article before he strangely disappeared from public site, apparently to collect his paycheck for telling the biggest “fish story” I’ve ever seen.

ESPN let the article stand on it’s own for an entire day before making some small changes like inserting the word “possibly” (the original story has been deleted but exist throughout the nation on blogs and emails) and admitting in a broad statement they had made a huge error.

Here is the ESPN statement:

“ESPNOutdoors.com inadvertently contributed to a flare-up Tuesday when we posted the latest piece in a series of stories on President Barack Obama's newly created Ocean Policy Task Force, a column written by Robert Montgomery, a conservation writer for BASS since 1985.

Regrettably, we made several errors in the editing and presentation of this installment. Though our series has included numerous news stories on the topic, this was not one of those -- it was an opinion piece, and should clearly have been labeled as commentary.

And while our series overall has examined several sides of the topic, this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view. We have reached out to people on every side of the issue and reported their points of view -- if they chose to respond -- throughout the series, but failed to do so in this specific column.”

The most amazing part of this weak denial of responsibility is the word “inadvertently”.

As I stated at the time, no one in the fishing community could mistake this as an inadvertent spin on the innocuous task force decision to simply end public comment, as all task forces must eventually do if they are ever going to issue a report of any kind.

No, I believe Robert Montgomery knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote this column. It clearly was an attempt to ignite anger and fear in fishermen across the nation, which it has been spectacularly successful at doing despite my best efforts to stop this from happening.

All I can say is that I tried, folks. But I do not have a public platform like ESPN and the story spun out of control fulfilling my dark expectations, as rush Limbaugh repeated it on the radio and then Glenn Beck put it on national television.

The amazing part of all this is that the true victims here are turning out to be honest and decent conservative fishermen who happen to be right-wingers, which is no problem for me at all. A large part of the angling community is very conservative and has every right to be. These folks are my friends and entirely entitled to dislike President Obama all they want.

Montgomery’s deception, however, has turned them into liars, as they are now out among the fishing community spreading this myth as fact and arguing throughout tackle shops and internet sites across the nation that Obama is getting ready to ban recreational fishing.

The White House has now officially denied this story as best they can, but frankly in our current political environment conservative anglers across the country simply won’t believe the truth. It’s hard to blame them with folks like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck repeating it on the air as fact.

The best thing that can happen now is for ESPN to man up and apologize to the American people for they have done and to publicly fire Robert Montgomery for what I believe with ever fiber of my body was an intentional attempt to use ESPN to manipulate public opinion disguised as a news story.

Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck then need to take to the airwaves (please!) and tell the right wing community and a nation of worried fishermen that this story is untrue.

Short of that I don’t see this stopping anytime soon. The Obama fishing ban is the now one of the biggest fishing lies of all time, and Robert Montgomery and ESPN should be embarrassed and ashamed to have started it.

[IrishAyes]

First off, when a president installs an environmentalist as the head of the federal fishery there is something wrong.

You don't think there is an agenda here?

You think this guy really cares about the American Citizen?

There are many more people who do not want ObamaCare than there are people who do want ObamaCare. This is not stopping him from trying to jam it down our throat! I admit that the health care is broken, but we need a real fix.

Here is the flip side of the issue by the RFA.

IS RECREATIONAL FISHING BEING BANNED? 

 
A recent national opinion piece has ignited a firestorm this week concerning the efforts of the Obama Administration's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and its involvement in implementing a policy of "marine spatial planning" that could ultimately effect the management of and public access to the nation's natural public resources.  The column comes three weeks after the closing of the public comment period by the Presidential task force and on the heels of the historic fishermen's rally at the Capitol on February 24 coordinated by the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) and its allied groups.   
 
Recent press releases issued by some sportfishing industry and angling conservation groups have expressed dismay at the unwillingness of administrators to listen to their recommendations.  None of this comes as a surprise to the RFA.  More troubling is that some of these same insiders have shown a willingness under past administrations to accept use of executive privilege in managing coastal access while fruitlessly participating in the new administration's new bureaucratic task force process. 
 
"The goal of the key players in the process, specifically the Pew Environment Group and its minions, is to attempt to implement through Executive Order what they had failed to accomplish through the legislative process," said Jim Donofrio, RFA Executive Director.  "We welcome those organizations who feel disenfranchised by the task force to join us in working to prevent what is the usurpation of the management of this nation's fisheries, oceans, coastal waters and the Great Lakes for ideological reasons," Donofrio said.
 
The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force led by the White House Council on Environmental Policy was established by President Obama on June 12, 2009.  According to the Presidential memorandum, the task force was charged with developing a national policy for the protection, maintenance and restoration of U.S. oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes.  "It will also recommend a framework for improved stewardship and effective coastal and marine special planning," the White House said in June. 
 
The same month the task force was established, Donofrio was invited to testify before congress in opposition to legislation sponsored by California Democrat Rep. Sam Farr (H.R. 21), a bill which would establish a new national policy for our oceans.  In a release issued last fall, Donofrio said the RFA was unnerved by glaring similarities of the new report and Rep. Farr's H.R. 21, the Ocean Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act (aptly referred to as Oceans 21). "This appears to be an attempt by the Executive branch to circumvent the established legislative process and enact policy that failed as legislation 5 years in a row," Donofrio said, adding "RFA believes enacting laws through Executive order and proclamation sets a dangerous precedence."
 
Oceans 21 has failed to gain Congressional support because of its ability to restrict access to public resources while creating a new bureaucratic hierarchy with unprecedented power to regulate fisheries and implement ocean zoning without oversight or public input. The RFA has been in the forefront of exposing Oceans 21 and is a leader in preventing its passage. On June 18, 2009, the RFA was the only national fishing organization that testified before Congress in opposition of the bill. 
 
"Recreational fishermen have been watching fisheries management in this country literally get hijacked by preservationists," Donofrio said this week in response to the national news headlines indicating the president was going to ban recreational fishing.  "I don't think this president would consider banning recreational fishing outright, but it's clear to us that the Obama Administration would like to severely restrict recreational fishing."  Donofrio said RFA and others are troubled by the number of staffers within the Administration who have direct ties to Pew.
 
RFA said the good part about the recent headlines is that people are opening their eyes to the fact that "the fisheries management system is broken" and in need of repair.  "Are we concerned about realities regarding the task force?  Yes we are, and that's the hijacking of H.R. 21, a bill that would set up such an incredible bureaucratic infrastructure that Americans would indeed have a hard time finding fishing opportunities," Donofrio said. 
 
Records show that groups like Pew and the David & Lucille Packard Foundation have used funds to support implementation of marine protected areas, denying public access to large areas of coastal waters.  "Years ago, Pew and Packard had a dream of creating blanket marine reserves across the country through the legislative process, but that quickly fell apart when Congress wouldn't support it so they moved into the states," Donofrio said.  "True, they found certain governments like California very supportive of efforts to institute blanket closures, but they never gave up their goal of getting us all off the water by whatever means possible," he said.  Donofrio explained that Pew-funded groups worked hard to push rigid "overfishing" language into the Magnuson Stevens Act during the 2006 reauthorization debate.
 
"Essentially, Pew was able to create these de facto reserves which make fishing opportunities so incredibly hard. Take for example red snapper and other important snapper/grouper which are off limits to recreational anglers in the south Atlantic despite rebuilding progress," Donofrio said.  "Pew's stacked the task force deck, and they've even got one of their Pew Fellowship award-winners as head of the fisheries service, it's certainly troubling." 
 
Dr, Jane Lubchenco, who the President appointed to run NOAA Fisheries in 2009, is also a past member of the Pew Oceans Commission, the steering committee of the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative, and a director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, SeaWeb, and Environmental Defense all of which are Pew funding recipients.  Dr. Lubchenco also serves as Trustee Emerita of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
 
"Dr. Luchenco currently sits atop a growing number of appointees who are pushing an agenda of ocean zoning, catch shares and Draconian regulatory actions that are severely hindering our ability to fish with resulting negative impacts on the economy and significant job losses," said Donofrio who pointed out that it's been this apparent "takeover of fisheries management" which led to the fishermen's rally in Washington DC on February 24 which drew an estimated crowd of over 4,000 fishermen in support of the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act (H.R. 1585 and S. 1255).
 
Read more from RFA Press Releases
10/23/2009 - 12 Million U.S. Saltwater Anglers Ignored - www.joinrfa.org/Press/TaskForce_102309.pdf
6/24/2009 - RFA Testifies Before Congress - www.joinrfa.org/Press/RFACongress_062309.pdf

[Capt. Joe G]

here we go again .. freaking communist country were are turning into...How you like the change Now

[wb]

...How you like the change Now

like a heart attack

[nascarwarren]

Well I guess they will just have to pry my rod and reel out of my cold dead hands just like my firearms.

[Capt. Birch]

Well I guess they will just have to pry my rod and reel out of my cold dead hands just like my firearms.

Here is a little bright spot for all us gun owners on a rainy day.  President Obama  signed  a law that makes it legal to carry concealed loaded firearms in national parks(that was one of those rights that we lost under Reagan). Yea I too thought it was a little odd that if a guy had a hidden agenda to take away my rights he would sign a law that lets me carry loaded hand guns in parks. The bright side is that anybody looking to have prying done can now do so in national parks legally.