I actually don’t think I’m in the minority when I say I didn’t see drunks or fist fights or piles of garbage. I’m sorry to hear the opponents of Opening Day had such a tough time on the water that day. The places I went to were really nothing special at all. I actually would have liked to see more fish stocked than what clearly was though. That’s what tells me doing away with Opening Day is not such a great idea. All due respect, but your kinda splitting hairs. Okay so kids under 14 are cool for an Opening Day event, but where? Are you going to make sure that the fish are spread evenly and fairly across the entire state? How do you manage that? What sort of planning are you proposing the DEP undertake to stock just enough so that only the kids on that day have a quality experience? I can take my kid there that day, but I can’t fish…okay, but can we both fish there together sometime? The next day, the next week?? I’m sorry, but you still have to give me more than this. I haven’t gone out on Opening Day for some years now (this year being the exception), but even though it won’t hurt me much, I could never favor a set of rules that hurts the average Joe fisherman. We have always undervalued their contributions. Without the power of numbers these people have brought to the table (our table) and will continue to bring, we’ll become the poster child for special interest groups and sound like one hand clapping when we want people to listen to us. There is already too much being yanked out from under the average guy. How easy might it be to cut things even further if there were even less fishermen to please? When you consider stuff like this you can’t just think how it affects one portion of fishermen. You have to apply this equitably across the entire group. One guy may buy a $100 St Croix rod and a license, but don’t leave out the 100 guy’s who bought $1.00 bobbers and their licenses. Like it or not we all gotta fish/live together and along with bad behavior there is good. Opening Day can be a very cool event in peoples lives. Why not first try to make it even better? As far as making sure there are more opportunities for kids to fish… GREAT. Double the amount of designated Trout Parks for starters. tjd