Don’t Use My Fishing Rod to Sell Your Amendment 83
I love to fish.
And if you spend much time around Colorado anglers, you know we talk about more than the hatch, the water temperature, what they’re eating, and what fly to throw at 10,000 feet.. We talk about the fish themselves.
Take the Big Thompson. It gets hammered. Anglers notice. We talk about pressure, low flows, drought, water temperatures and what happens when too many people are standing in the same river, casting to the same fish over and over. And when conditions get tough, you’ll hear anglers say, “Maybe we need to give these fish a break.”
That, to me, is conservation.
It’s not always about catching more fish. Sometimes it’s about knowing when to step back.
That’s why I have a problem with Amendment 83, Colorado’s proposed constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish.
I’m not anti-hunting. Hunting has a legitimate place in Colorado. Fishing certainly does. But this amendment goes far beyond saying, People should be allowed to hunt and fish.
It would establish hunting and fishing as the state’s “preferred means” of managing fish and wildlife populations. And while it says the state retains regulatory authority, those regulations would have to meet constitutional standards tied to scientific conservation, public safety, or preserving future hunting and fishing opportunities but only if legally proven “necessary”. That’s a judge, not a fisheries biologist.
Amendment 83 doesn’t merely create a right to fish. Its actual text separately declares it Colorado policy that hunting and fishing are the “preferred means of responsibly managing fish and wildlife populations.” That’s a powerful distinction because it comes straight from Section 2 rather than from either campaign’s interpretation.
That is a very different proposition from simply protecting my right to take a fly rod down to the river.
And here’s where I have a real problem with the way this is being packaged.
Anglers understand that wildlife management sometimes means less opportunity, not more.
When a river is too warm, flows are too low or fish are getting hammered by pressure, responsible anglers don't say, “Well, fishing is our preferred management tool, so keep the lines in the water.”
We say, “Give the fish a break.”
That is conservation.
So when I see a constitutional amendment being marketed with fishing right alongside hunting, it makes me wonder whether anglers are being used as the shiny orange bow on a package that is really about changing the rules of wildlife management.
The amendment isn't merely protecting something we already enjoy. It is establishing a constitutional preference for hunting and fishing as wildlife-management tools and putting new limits on how future wildlife regulations can be written.
And that matters to me.
Because I don't want my fishing rods used to sell a constitutional change that could make it harder for Colorado to adapt wildlife management when circumstances change.
Drought changes rivers. Wildfires change habitat. Disease changes populations. Climate changes conditions. Wildlife populations move. Sometimes conservation means increasing opportunity. Sometimes it means closing the door for a while.
Anglers understand that.
We live it every time we put down the rod because the river needs a break.
That's why I don't appreciate having anglers presented as the shiny orange bow on somebody else's package.
I fish because I love Colorado's rivers and the wild things living in them. And conservation means protecting them—even when that means giving them a break.
Don’t use my fishing rod to sell me something that isn’t about conservation.
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