If you told any state rep or senator last fall, after they passed the 100% fees and license increases, that sportsmen would organize and get this rolled back they all would have laughed, and in fact, until the second meeting at Cabelas in November, most of them were still laughing. But a few of these reps and senators saw the light and that we would not be denied and took a leadership roll.
Buck - you're right on target as usual.
I am thinking back to the Sept 8th CAC meeting, when a small group got together after the meeting to discuss how devastating the fee increase would be and to figure out what, if anything, could we do about it? This certainly was a low point for sportsmen. We called Cabelas to set up the first meeting and didn't think anyone would show up, because sportsmen(myself included) have historically been an apathetic constituency. Once the wider sportsmen's audience became aware of the impacts, and they began to understand that "hand to hand combat" was needed to win, we gained momentum. To me, the shift from whining about the fees to doing something about it was key: WRITING LETTERS, MAKING PHONE CALLS, ATTENDING THE PUBLIC HEARING ON SB207, SHOWING UP AT THE CAPITAL ON SPORTSMEN'S DAY.....these things mattered.
Even those legislators who didn't believe us or care about the issue couldn't deny that we were visible. This made the lobbyists jobs easier.....and it also brought about surprising changes in behavior from some legislators, such as Rep Urban, who, though strongly opposed to hunting, LED the initiative to REINSTATE the DUCK STAMP PROGRAM based on the conservation arguments put forth by DU, CWA and other interested parties. That was nothing short of a miracle!
So, for me, it showed that we have to be at the table to win, or even keep our share. This problem ain't over...one look at next year's yawning budget gap tells me if we're not paying attention, someone else will try to eat our lunch.
But for now, enough of this budget stuff. Time to catch fish and train retrievers.
"Our leaders are stupid, they are stupid people," "It's just very, very sad" - Donald Trump 2011
"With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds like it." - JAMES M. INHOFE
"Most meteorological research is funded by the federal government. And boy, if you want to get federal funding, you better not come out and say human-induced global warming is a hoax because you stand the chance of not getting funded." - WILLIAM GRAY
"The gods do not deduct from man's allotted span those hours spent in fishing" - Babylonian proverb
Actually, I believe she is home careing for her very ill husband. She has not been in Hartford very much at all this session.
""Happy Talk" . . . . . Because it has worked so well thus far"
"It is not necessary to change; survival is not mandatory" - Edward Deming
"Unless we start to focus everything on this, our targets will soon be out of reach" - Greta Thunberg January 2020
"I spent most of my dough on booze, broads and boats and the rest I wasted" - Elmore Leonard.
Team Man Made Climate Change is Real.
"Such change demands on our part a serious and responsible recognition not only of the kind of world we may be leaving to our children, but also to the millions of people living under a system which has overlooked them" - Pope Francis September 2015
AWESOME JOB FOLKS!!! 
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