Beware of tangents and diversions.

They’re the toughest obstacles to overcome when trying to evaluate specific proposals for new wildlife laws.

For instance, we may talk about fine-tuning laws for snook and redfish, which should be based on existing circumstances.

The tangential thinker, however, immediately goes off about general factors, such as population growth, development, habitat loss, lack of enforcement and poaching. He or she introduces these other subjects as if they must be solved before the specific regulations at hand can even be addressed.

The result can be stagnating, as we saw for so many years.

Back when we were screaming about gillnet slaughters in the early ’90s, the state finally agreed to have a huge powwow about the nets, in Crystal River. Hundreds of anglers and netters (and armed officers) overflowed a big tent. From the beginning came the obfuscations about habitat losses being the problem.

Marine bureaucrats and commissioners felt powerless against the pressures, and did nothing. That set the stage, you may recall, for the citizen initiative that finally took out the gillnets in July 1995.

Flashing forward, just days ago, we caught two keeper reds in quick succession at Fernandina Beach.

“You know in the old days this good redfishing would have been a big surprise,” said Capt. Terry Lacoss. “The net ban changed all that, for trout and other fish, too.”

No-sale status for reds and most trout fishing, along with tighter limits, also paved the way.

Interestingly, all this happened in the same habitat, amid population growth and steady development.

The important point is that while we must fight excess development, pollution and habitat degradation, we should never use those factors as reasons to ignore necessary changes in laws that address the waters as they exist, not as we might envision them.

I’ll not forget talking to a lead state biologist at that Crystal River showdown, when he suggested that fighting gillnets should not be considered until the habitat is fixed.

He could not have been more wrong.

You’ve got to manage what you’ve got correctly, even while taking good care of the places where they live.

--Karl Wickstrom