LAST EDITED ON Jul-16-01 AT 02:26 PM (PST)

Thanks Brian. Yes, Steve Gaines and I have been corresponding numerous times since last week. I wasn't sure he wanted his identity revealed in fear that he would be overloaded with e-mails. Constructive ones are fine but there are a lot of people out there that just want to b*tch about the MLPA and he shouldn't have to deal with them as he is not the DFG. Of course his name is on the DFG website so anyone could have found him. So... I would still recommend e-mailing to Paul Reilly as it seems he is now forwarding them straight to Steve but if you have to e-mail Steve please conduct yourselves in a postitive manner. From our correspondence I believe he is on our side and he is a good person to have on our side.

He seems genuinely concerned about us float tubers and I believe he now understands that our type of fishing does not impact the resource very much - especially those of us who practice catch and release or release a percentage of our legal fish and use artificial lures. Being a marine biologist I feel he truly appriciates my conservationalist attitude when it comes to fishing.

I knew being primarily a catch and release, lure only fisherman would pay off someday :)

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You can't catch tomorrow what you kill today - please practice catch and release.