Coffee with the DNR... tonight at D&R Sports. Who's going?

[Waterfoul]

My wife and I will be attending this meeting.  Anyone else going to be there??

Mike

[djkimmel]

I'm going to look out the door in a few minutes  and if the world isn't encased in ice from today's sleet and snow I'm planning on going.

[djkimmel]

Wow! Big turnout! Diverse crowd! Thanks Randy VanDam! 24 persons. Only 1 MDNR fish biologist but he answered a pretty wide range of questions. I'll do some kind of report later tomorrow. Too much to cover it all. Several other members were there too. I thought it went well.

[Waterfoul]

I got partial answers to my questions... mainly because Jay is a biologist and not a CO.  It seems our battle to get a longer bass season may come to fruition in 2015 though!  Good news.

[djkimmel]

He did say the '50% of the fish biologists' who are against the change are 'caving in.'

He also mentioned that you should write a letter to your NRC commissioner about things like the drop shot, and there was something else another person asked about that he suggested they do the same? Actually a great suggestion because the NRC now has authority to do most of this stuff unless we lose the vote in November without getting enough petition signatures.

I thought Jay did a good job overall. Some of what he said about the bass season was just sharing what various people in the Fisheries Division are saying not necessarily what he thought. Some of the other things he discussed about other fish is actually helpful to me to for more clarification against the few limits some people are still using as possible excuses to not go along with year-round bass fishing.

[Waterfoul]

But he couldn't tell me who the commissioner is for our area over here.  Where do I find that?

[djkimmel]

Go to www.michigan.gov/nrc and look at the links under Meet the Commission. There's a general contact phone number and also nrc@michigan.gov email address that both probably go to the NRC clerk. I think if you send something to the clerk it will get to the whole NRC. Might be a better bet.

I'm not really sure they actually cover a region? You can see where they are from and their addresses, and assume, I guess that the one that lives closest would be 'your' commissioner?