Published: April 10, 2009 07:38 pm      

2 p.m., May 9, Allegany College

The moment I see the scientific evidence to do so, I will happily and with gusto support the Maryland Inland Fisheries Division’s regulations that make it illegal to fish with bait and illegal to keep brook trout on most of the Savage River drainage.

Until then, I oppose those regulations ... with fervor.

Maybe the shining, eureka moment will come on May 9. That is the Saturday on which the agency will conduct a meeting to let the public talk about proposed fishing regulations that would go into effect in 2010. The meeting in Cumberland will be a little different than in past years. For one thing, it is being conducted on a weekend. For another thing, it takes the form of an open house that begins at 1 p.m. and continues until 8 p.m. Interested anglers can come and go as they please within that time frame, asking questions of the fisheries biologists who will be there.

The coming and going will take place somewhere on the campus of Allegany College of Maryland on Willowbrook Road. Don Cosden, chief of inland fisheries, has requested from the college that the meeting be in the Continuing Education Building, but that has not been confirmed as of now. In any event, Cosden said there will be signs directing the public to the appropriate room.

Regular readers know that I recently celebrated my 30-year anniversary at the Times-News. In three decades of writing columns about hunting and fishing, I am certain that the no-kill, no-bait brook trout regulations on most of the Savage River drainage take the top spot for the number of words that have run from my brain, through my fingers, onto a keyboard and eventually to the newspaper you pick up from your front porch on a Sunday morning. OK. I’m realistic. I know some of you get those words via cyber space. That’s not as much fun, of course, as reading the real thing.

Cosden told me recently that the reason for the open house (Cumberland is the only meeting location having one) is that scientific information about the agency’s brook trout management will be on display. I hope it is more meaningful than what the agency presented in September 2006 at the same college when they were railroading the new regulations through on us.

If there is any thing new, the data will have to have come from after the time the regulations took effect Jan. 1, 2007. There still won’t be the baseline info that should have been there to make such a drastic regulation.

In the event you have forgotten, the regulations are to be in place for five years. We are almost half way through that stretch. That means that in 2011 the agency would look back over the previous four years and determine if the rules are to continue in 2012.

I am not the only one who opposes these regs. Early on, many of you wrote to me expressing your dissatisfaction and I ran your letters on the Outdoors page.

To be fair, I also ran letters from those who favored the rules.

On this subject, at least one other person outfervors me, that being Maude LeMaster, a resident of the banks of the Savage River who has fished it, along with her family members, for many years.

From her rural homestead in Almost Maryland, Maude has petitioned, traveled, buttonholed and researched in her effort to have the regulations reversed so that her grandchildren can once again dangle a worm for a brookie, catch it and, yes by God, eat the thing.

Maude has not been successful, but she has not stopped. Again, she is distributing a petition that asks for elimination of the no-bait, no-brookie-kill regulations.

“They took away the rights of bait fishermen,” Maude says.

Here is part of what Maude says in the fliers she is passing out. “Please take the time to come (to the open house) to support the bait fisherman’s rights to have 111 miles of the Savage River watershed changed back. The only way for change is to show up and give support. We need you and your family to attend. This affects future generations greatly. Children are welcome too because these regulations stop them from bait fishing. Come and support the current petition.”

Here is the thing. Maude doesn’t want you to show up just any old time between 1 and 8 p.m. She would much prefer that you be there at 2 p.m. Frankly, she is looking for a show of force.

I think she is on to something.

I say that because a week ago I reported Don Cosden’s comments about a proposed limit of 10 yellow perch for Deep Creek Lake. Cosden told me, speaking of the yellow perch, “We don’t have a lot of scientific data on that subject, but if the majority want it, well, it’s their fishery, so we’ll go with it.”

Hmmmmm!!

Since there was not a lot of scientific data for the Savage River drainage brookies, then that subject too should be handled the same way. Go with the majority, especially the local majority.

In 2006, the agency said bait fishermen were hurting the brook trout population, yet had absolutely no creel harvest data that would show how many anglers fish these remote tributaries and what they use to catch the brook trout. A highly regarded report describing the plight of the Eastern brook trout in a number of states made no mention of recreational fishing being a danger to the species, though many other perils were listed.

Jeff Conner, president of Citizens Rights and Heritage Group, said that organization continues to oppose the existing regulations. Conner, too, lives in the drainage.

“In fact, Maude is working on this project on our behalf,” said Conner, who has refused to purchase a Maryland fishing license since the brookie rules took effect.

We are talking about 111 miles of stream, many of those miles tucked deep into the Savage River State Forest on public land. Get caught with a meal worm and you pay the price.

Recently a Pennsylvania angler did just that, got caught with meal worms that is, fishing on Big Run, you know.

Now I don’t know the specifics of this case, but I know that Big Run flows alongside a road that the vehicles of Maryland’s natural resources police officers navigate on a regular basis.

If the angler in question was intentionally using meal worms, knowing that it was a violation, then that’s just plain not smart. In fact, it is not smart to the tune of a $250 prepay or a court visit that could reduce the fine or increase it, up to $500.

The price of a dozen meal worms just went up.

If, on the other hand, this aquatic tort was an unwitting one, the angler will pay for not reading or understanding the regulations.

And, oh my gosh, what if he had actually hooked, landed and kept a brook trout? The end of the species as we know it in the Savage River drainage may have begun at that point.

Honestly, folks, let’s get rid of these stupid regulations.

2 p.m., May 9, Allegany College of Maryland.

Contact Outdoor Editor Mike Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.