Ladies and gentlemen a group of spearfishermen has proposed opening pandoras box to spearfishing for all gamefish in Colorado. If you're against allowing spearfishing for gamefish in Colorado please consider signing the petition below and sharing it with your friends and family.
A couple things to consider:
-There's been no considerations mentioned for protecting fish during the spawn. This means bass on beds, walleye up shallow on rip rap, or trout on redds can be taken by spearfisherman.
-No one can accurately guess fish size without measuring fish. Allowing spearfishing in any bodies of water with slot or size limits of any kind for gamefish shouldn't be considered. Anglers can release sub-legal-size fish all day whereas a spearfisherman can't.
-Anglers across the state work too hard to make fishing the best it can be in Colorado to allow spearfishing for gamefish in our state. We volunteer with the CPW with spawning projects, habitat improvements, and even argue with each other trying to find what we can collectively do to continually improve fishing opportunities in Colorado. Across the board in fishing groups in our state have spoken out together against spearfishing for gamefish.
-Colorado is faced with a unique set of circumstances with fishery management and can't be compared to our surrounding states. We have a limited amount of water with an already robust population that doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. The extreme amount of pressure our fisheries receive is hard enough on natural recruitment and fish populations in general without adding a 100 percent kill activity to the mix.
I'm doing my best to remove emotion from this petition, but quite honestly I can't. If this goes through it'll have an immediate and lasting negative impact on fishing in Colorado.
-Eric Allee
