Greg makes good points about the government trying to make money from the new saltwater licenses, as did most other fishermen I spoke to, and very good points about people leaving various detritus behind when fishing. Even when I finally caught up later that week with Ben for a brief interview that was cut short by the jingling of bells, a hit on his line, he told me he didn't trust the government's motives for issuing the licenses. "I think my biggest problem with it is I don't understand it. Are they trying to regulate fish populations or are they trying to regulate us?" he said. "I don't know if they're trying to keep tabs on people because as far as i know, the number of people who are fishing here, are really not enough to make a dent.

"Not that recreational fishing isn't a problem. I believe in regulations and I believe in trying to have some understanding of how many fish are being caught. But it doesn't really seem like the problems with overfishing have anything to do with the individual fisherman. And it seems especially unfair that fishing is this nice thing that you can come outside to do, that's not controlled and not over-regulated and is a really nice escape. And not only are they making you buy this license, but they're getting your information. And that's annoying."

Though hardly anyone trusts the government to spend money appropriately, I decided to do some due diligence and contacted the DEC office in Albany via email. I got one of those automated email responses back that read, "Thank you for contacting the Department of Environmental Conservation. Here are the most popular answers to your question... Did this answer your question?" Of course, they never do. Fortunately, someone named Wallace "Wally" John responded back with a quick missive: "Out of the office today but will call you Monday with details."

I got John on the phone on Tuesday. He's worked for the DEC for a little over two years, but spent 24 years in the New York State Assembly working on environmental policy. He seemed quite knowledgable about all aspects surrounding the license debate and the controversy and rebellion. But I first asked him to give me the DEC's perspective, since all I had at this point was news articles and personal accounts of fishermen who felt betrayed by the state.

"We see this as an opportunity to develop a better database for our own programs," John said. "Our objectives are essentially the same as the [federal registry]. What we found were their survey methods were sub par: essentially what they did was randomly call people in marine towns and ask "Did you fish?" And they either say no or yes, but it's random. They might fish or they might not fish. We don't waste time with this if we're using the registry."

The surveys, he explained, were trying to determine the extent of what the recreational catch is of the species of marine fish out there. What worried most fishermen I talked to was the licenses would lead to more regulation, that the DEC would mismanage the information and cut their seasons short. But what John said is that the current data system is so unsound that New York fishermen are already at a disadvantage.

"One of the arguments the DEC has made is the distribution data is already so flawed, the data is so bad that setting bag limits and quotas in New York based on this data is unfair," he said. "The federal government has the ability to shut down any fishery they want based on the data which is inherently dubious as to the accuracy. Nine other states have better distribution data than us and New York anglers are essentially being punished because of this lack of data. That's the driving force."