Quick Quip...

You might think that the walleye you just landed took off in a hurray. In fact, the walleye's maximum speed is about 3 mph, while a brown trout can reach 8 mph, and a steelhead salmon 18 mph. However, they all fail in comparison to the tuna, which has been known to reach speeds in excess of 40 mph!

What's New...

Slowly but surely, we're getting the bugs out of the 'new look'. If you come across any we've missed, just send email to the Webmaster and we'll get them fixed. We'll be uploading all of the changes you've requested to the Tournaments Page in the next few days.

This is the first month that we have produced 2 issues of the Web-zine. It was getting too confusing to adjust the Table of Contents pages half way through each month. In addition, the number of pages for each month was running around 30 at the present (we expect that will grow), so it makes sense to split one large issue into 2. In the next few days, we'll be announcing our new Lodges, Charters and Guides Pages which will put the rest of the Net to shame - so watch for that coming soon.

This Issue...

Well, Spring is springing, and we're getting in the mood. Check out the new issue for timely articles!

Follow-up...

In last issue's Beef, I took the governments to task for (as usual) for the severe group brain cramps that resulted in the non-smoking bylaw in Toronto, and the banning of smoking-related advertising in terms of sports promotion and sponsorship. Well, once again it seems I wasn't the only one thinking this way. Last week, the City of Toronto rescinded the smokking bylaw and introduced something involving 10% smoking in restaurants over 75 seats and something else for restaurants under that number -- or at least a law that supersedes it's predacessor, not only in confusion, but in it's ability to be policed.

And in the matter of advertising, rumour has it that by the time you read this, the Fed's will have made some loopholes which will eventually cause the complete demise of the bill in it's ridiculous entirety.

Comment...

ast Friday, I caught an episode of one of my few frequently watched television programs, "@ discovery.ca" (pronounced 'At Discovery Canada'), during which Jay Ingram covered a story about the Canadian Government reopening commercial Cod fishing on Canada's east coast. I was stunned.

It has been merely four years since the ban on Cod Fishing was put into place, and I defy anyone to tell me that a commercial fishery can be rebuilt in that time.

The information from the @discovery.ca story can be found online at the Discovery Canada website, so I won't repeat it here. You can read the various stances taken by the scientists on each side at your leisure.

But let's face it. Scientists aside, how long does it take for an entire fishery to recover. How long must stocking programs operate in inland lakes, reservoirs and rivers before the population of stocked fish is healthy enough to even permit sportfishing without threatening these efforts?

Given that the Cod stocks were so depleted that the entire fishery was threatened, who in their right mind could possibly conceive that only four years would be enough time for the fish stocks to recover naturally?

This will most likely be an election year in Canada, and the federal governing party (the Liberal Party of Canada) is high enough in the polls for their croonies to suggest they procede quickly.

In the past, I have generally supported the Liberals, to the extent that I even managed some local campaigns for them. But their recent history of Bill C-68 (Excessive Gun Control), the Tobacco Advertising Legislation and now this blatant disregard for natural resources in order to put people back to work, thereby decreasing the national welfare cost and artificially decreasing the national deficit will all weigh heavily on my mind when I dutifully make my way to the ballot box.

Until next issue...
(tight lines, get it wet, good fishin', see you on the water, etc., etc.).

Scott M. Binnie, Managing Editor