All this is good and well, and sportsmen deserve a collective pat on the back for thoughtful acts like this.

Unfortunately, what you may get is a kick in the teeth instead.

The federal government has been poised to cut the recreational red grouper limit on the Gulf Coast from two to one per person, at the same time continuing to allow a few hundred privileged commercial fishers to haul in fish by the ton.

We’ve seen in recent years what a one-fish recreational limit on greater amberjack has done: Pretty much nothing. Commercial boats—some masquerading as charterboats—continue to whale away at the stocks. Same thing is bound to happen to red grouper.

Fishery manager types talk proudly of 10-year plans to bring a fish population up to a level at which it may produce sustainable yields for fish markets. But what if the public wants a population that produces impressive yields? Big, strong fish that are fun to catch, expanding populations, fish returning to old shallow-water reefs long devoid of life.

Some of the same dark forces have been poking around our swordfish nurseries in an attempt to scoop up an international “quota” that the U.S. supposedly must catch or else give away to other nations. Recreational fishers didn’t complain when the government limited them to one sword per person, no more than 3 per boat a few years ago. Shoot, that seemed like a lot of fish. But now with stocks apparently showing signs of recovery, longliners desperately want a renewed shot at the fish. No one to our knowledge has yet broached the question of, why not allocate that quota to the recreational sector? Would it be unclassy to ask that?

Similar drill with yellowfin tuna: 3 per person, while commercial boats whack ’em senseless in the Gulf of Mexico and along the upper U.S. Atlantic coast.

Spiny lobsters? Staring down the barrel of a fishery in decline, there are market-fishing advocates who would like nothing better than to eliminate the traditional sportsman’s mini season held each summer.

You should react to insults like this with outrage every bit as passionate as your love for your favorite fish. You should be mad as hornets.

It is not your place to quietly rationalize one-fish days in order to prop up an industry that has left fishery after fishery in ruins.

Probably the worst offense is, at a time when fishery managers should be trending away from allocating privileges to small segments of society, they’re steaming in the opposite direction: giving away individual fishing quotas and limited-entry permits. Government is granting a select few individuals the “right” to catch and sell fish on a permanent basis, even going so far as to allow permit-holders to sell the permits.

It’s the craziest scam we’ve ever heard of: The government hands out money to commercial fishermen (which is what those permits represent), while at the same time cutting the fishing rights of citizens.

Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the commercial entities influence a lot of the decisions at the federal level, with lobbying power that stretches right up to Capitol Hill.

Florida’s net ban galvanized the public like never before in this state, but that was a fairly straightforward, singular issue. The stuff that’s coming down the pike this year is far less transparent, much more insidious, but every bit as important.

You should be proud when you release that one great fish, or bring one home for the table. But at the same time, when the system that makes the rules is hurtling headlong into the privatization and plunder of a public resource, you should shout about it to anyone who will listen: senators, representatives, state and federal fishery council members.

If you’re a man or woman of few words, and only say one thing, make it this:

If it’s a one-fish limit, it should be a one-fish limit for everybody.

FS