Working with Conservation Officials By John Neporadny Jr.
Bass club members have great intentions when they plan a
conservation project, but without the right guidance their
well-meant efforts could lead to trouble.
Club members wanting to sink brush or plant aquatic
vegetation on their home waters can avoid possible fines or
citations by working on their project with a local conservation
department official, such as a biologist.
“On almost all public bodies of water that I am aware of, you
are supposed to have some sort of permit or permission from the
regulating authority to enhance the habitat,” said Gene
Gilliland, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (ODWC)
fisheries biologist.
“A lot of times that is not necessarily the conservation
agency; it could be a power company, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers or a city. But biologists will already know this
because in all likelihood they have done projects there. They
know all the hoops that have to be jumped through.”
The St. Louis Area Bassmasters club has discovered the
benefits of working with Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC)
fisheries biologist Marvin Brown throughout the years.
“We’ve learned a lot about how to sink trees,” said Bill
Lewis, the club’s president. “A lot of people just pull them out
there and tie bricks to them and sink them, but Marvin had us
trimming them the correct way and mounting them on the cinder
blocks correctly.”
A good working relationship between a bass club and the state
conservation department benefits both organizations.
“We are all interested in the same thing,” said Greg Stoner,
an MDC fisheries biologist. “I am an avid fisherman and I am
interested in habitat in the lake and clubs are, too. So if they
are interested in getting a project started or working with us
on certain projects we definitely try to work with them.”
Gilliland has a unique relationship with the North Oklahoma
City Bassmasters; he is the club’s president. Other clubs have
to do a little research to begin a close association with a
conservation official.
“I think every bass club no matter where they are ought to know
the name and the phone numbers of the biologists that manage the
lakes they fish on,” Gilliland said.
This information is usually available on a state agency’s
website or in its fishing regulation brochures.
“Working on conservation projects is a great way to build
that relationship between the clubs and the agency. And it
doesn’t get any better than working face to face with that
biologist,” Gilliland said.
The St. Louis Area Bassmasters met Brown several years ago at
the St. Louis Boat and Sportshow where they expressed their
interest in working on conservation projects.
“Ever since then he has five or six a year that we do for
him,” Lewis said.
A simple invitation is the easiest way to start a productive
partnership. And Lewis added, “If clubs want to do conservation
projects, they should just invite the fisheries biologist to one
of their meetings.”
Gilliland suggested a club could take the invitation one step
further, so both parties can get to know each other better.
“One thing I have advocated for a long time is to offer to
take the biologist fishing,” he said. “It’s one thing to sit in
an office with someone to talk about a project, but when you are
out there on the water for a couple of hours, you kind of get
their undivided attention and you can really talk about the nuts
and bolts of what both your goals are. Hopefully by the end of
the conversation you will find out that you have a lot in
common.”
Oklahoma’s Gilliland said his department encourages its staff
to take advantage of opportunities to fish with bass club
members. “I think the biologists need to do more of that simply
because it helps keep them in touch with our customers,” he
said.
Clubs and conservation departments usually join forces to
improve habitat at local fisheries.
“The most common thing that clubs work on with us are habitat
enhancement projects, whether its putting in artificial
structures such as brush piles or plastic or PVC cover. The last
few years we have also done quite a bit of aquatic plant
introductions where we will get club members to help build the
plant enclosures and actually plant the vegetation we are trying
to get established in the lake.”
Gilliland has also relied on clubs to help the department
stock Florida-strain bass in Oklahoma lakes. “We will use bass
club members to help distribute the fish around the lake rather
than dumping all of them at a boat ramp,” he said.
Sinking brush piles seems like a simple enough project for a
club to accomplish on its own, but the biologists believe it’s
more advantageous to the club to work with the conservation
department on such projects.
“There are things that a club can do on its own with the
manpower and the funding that it has. But at some point they may
be better off putting that same amount of energy and time into
some bigger project where they are part of a bigger whole,”
Gilliland said.
Conservation departments usually have better equipment for
sinking fish attractors safely.
“I have put in enough brush piles with a johnboat to know it
can be dangerous when trying to put in any trees of any size,”
said Stoner. Bass Pro Shops has provided his department with a
35-foot pontoon boat equipped with a hydraulic press that can
stack 25-foot trees on the front bed of the boat. By merely
pressing a button, the front bed lifts up to drop the trees and
weights into the water.
With this type of equipment available, the club members can
concentrate more on the easier job of tying weights to the
trees. Stoner also relies on the club members‚ input on where to
sink the fish attractors based on their fishing experience and
knowledge of the lake’s bottom contour.
Clubs can get more bang for their bucks by working with
biologists since state agencies in many cases can use the
volunteer time and manpower of clubs to receive matching grant
money from the state or federal government.
“So if the club goes through the state agency and works in
cooperation with the state they can actually make what money and
time they put into their project go a lot further because of the
matching grant program,” Gilliland said. Thus, the labor donated
by the club goes towards matching grant funds that can be used
for more materials for the project.
Clubs need to set up well in advance for any conservation
projects with a fisheries biologist.
“That’s not something that the club can call up and say they
have next weekend free to do a habitat project. A club would
have to schedule the habitat barge. Our state has two of them
and they are scheduled for different areas throughout the year,”
Stoner said. The Missouri biologist added it also takes time to
find a source of trees since the department usually tries to
saturate an area with 30-40 fish attractors.
A club also needs to find out what time of year is best for
working on a conservation project with the local biologist.
“We typically do most of our habitat work, like sinking brush
piles, during the wintertime because that is when we are not
doing a lot of our regular field sampling, netting and shocking.
There really isn’t an off-season anymore. We used to have some
down times but now there is so much going on in terms of what we
do as an agency that there is no off season,” Gilliland said.
The ODWC usually sinks fish attractors in December, January
and February, but it conducts vegetation habitat work in April,
May and June when the water is warm enough to plant the aquatic
vegetation. Gilliland notes that some states such as
Pennsylvania have staff members whose main duties are habitat
enhancement. So clubs in these states have a better opportunity
to set up a project with these officials any time of the year.
The St. Louis Area Bassmasters have always done their
conservation project at August A. Busch Memorial Conservation
Area during the winter.
“We always collect a lot of trees after Christmas and sink about
800 or 900 a year,” Lewis said.
Developing a good relationship with a biologist can also help
a club improve its weigh-in procedures. Gilliland has attended
club weigh-ins before, critiqued the process and offered input
on how to better handle the fish.
Stoner feels biologists might get in the way during a
tournament, so he believes inviting the conservation official to
a meeting to discuss weigh-in procedures would be more
beneficial to a club.
“We don‚t want to slow the weigh-in down. We want to get
those fish in and out as quickly as possible,” Stoner said. The
Missouri biologist also encourages clubs in his area to send him
information (number of fish caught and released) from their
weigh-ins, which becomes useful data for him in determining the
status of the lake’s bass population.
If your bass club wants to improve the fishing on its home
waters, teaming up with a fisheries biologist will produce the
best results and save the club time and money to pursue other
projects, too.
A Perfect Guest
Does your club have trouble finding a guest speaker for its
annual banquet?
If so, you can solve that problem by inviting a fisheries
biologist to speak about your home waters. Greg Stoner, Missouri
Department of Conservation fisheries biologist, has spoken to
clubs throughout the years about the results of his annual fish
samplings at Lake of the Ozarks and how the data projects for
the next year‚s fishing prospects.
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation fisheries biologist
Gene Gilliland said his department welcomes the opportunity to
have one of its officials speak to a club.
“Any time that an organization wants a program or presentation
from us we certainly from an agency standpoint want to take
advantage of those as often as we can and try to schedule it
whenever it works for everybody‚s best interests,” Gilliland
said.
BOAT/US
Margaret Podlich, Vice-President of Government Affairs for
BOAT/U.S. (www.boatusangler.com) offers the following tips on
developing a long-term relationship with your local conservation
official:
Start off by inviting your local conservation official to your
next club meeting. Ask them to speak to pending issues related
to fishing, and buy them dinner. Work to create (and maintain) a
relationship where they know you are a good local source of
fishing information and advice, and where you can call them and
ask them about current concerns. Take them fishing with you
club!
Research opportunities to participate on citizens advisory
committees for the government. Maybe this is a statewide Boating
Advisory Committee, or a local lake management council. They
need to have input from user groups like bass clubs.
Invite your friends and families, invite the press and make it a
happening event. Get credit for your club giving back to the
environment and the fish you love!
Make a point of giving back to your community on regular
basis. Maybe this is a “take a kid fishing day”, or maybe your
club sends five volunteers to work at the Ronald McDonald House
every quarter. Document this work and publicize it, too. In
areas where boating access has been threatened, clubs that have
shown they provide community benefit (instead of just being an
exclusive private club) have more success defending their
long-term viability in the community.
