New rant

Last weekend I was taking a walk alongside Knife Lake.(North of Mora) The area by the bridge. This is where everyone fishes from the bank and pier for crappie and sunfish. Pretty popular place, between 30 and 50 people there some days.
In the beaten down grass was bait containers, pop cans , plastic bags, cigarette packages, candy bar wrappers ect. We all read posts about people cleaning up the ice around their fish houses in the spring. We all see trash dumped down the porta-potties at the landings at the lakes. We all see all the trash at the boat ramps and piers.

WHO ARE YOU PIGS?

Geez…….pick up behind yourselves.

If you are one of these people who has no respect for themselves or others, try this.

Go home tonight, don’t use the bathroom just pee in the corner of your living room. Don’t shower for a few months. Don’t wash your dishes just leave them sit where ever.

If you want to act like a pig you may as well look and smell like one. Your momma will be so proud of you.

Please pick up your trash from the public area’s, it’s really not that hard to do.

Ok, I feel better now.

My grandfather has a GREAT fix for this…

He’s 85+ years old. HAd both knees replaced and walks with a cane. He always carries a trash bag with him when he hits the trout streams. Since his knees won’t carry him far any more he is limited to fishing the community holes where you often run into crowds of people basically polluting the area with trash.

If I was to ask a guy to help me clean up the mess there’d likely be some words exchanged… or worse.

He plays on their emotions more than a little. He’ll pull out the bag and start picking up garbage. And he doesn’t pick around the edges. He’ll walk right up to where people are sitting and pick up a can or a wrapper at someone’s feet and look at them square in the eyes and smile.

On he goes. Doesn’t take 5 minutes and most everyone is picking up garbage and then he sits and holds the bag.

He’s like the pied piper of group trash clean-up… lol

And of course, after everything’s done, he has icebox cookies for everyone and the fishing begins.

Brian I am with you 100%. I shore fish a few spots on the north side of Chisago. The first time I went out this spring the amount of s*** along the banks was enough to make you sick. So the next time I went up to that spot I made a decision to throw a couple large trash bags in the back of the truck. When I got there before even wetting a line I took about 30 minutes and just about filled both bags. What was really interesting was all the people that just sat there and watched me. They saw me pull up, park, walk down with my fishing stuff and bucket and start cleaning up the mess. Did they think I was a janitor for the state or the county? All I can say is the area was cleaned up that day. I am heading up to that same spot for a while on Saturday morning and have the feeling I unfortunatly might need to bring three bags this time. Thanks for your post. Now I feel better now too. Love2Fish.

Well here is the way I see it. We will always have those who ruin it for the majority. But if the majority always takes out more then they leave we will eventually win the war. I see it as working for my privilege to have public access. If I pick up something everytime I am out that is less ammo for the DNR to use against us in taking away public access. Most public parks and access sites are closed due to clean up expence and rift raft hanging around.

I read this quote in the paper today: “Don’t find fault — find a remedy. Anybody can complain.” -Henry Ford

I don’t carry garbage bags, but that’s a great idea. I’ll make an effort to do that. My position has been that even if you only pick up what you can carry, anywhere you see it (river/lake shoreline, street, sidewalk, ANYWHERE), and put it in the trash you will have a large impact. Lead by example. I think James’s grandpa has it right. I doubt that tactic would work as well for younger guys, but let people see you pick up some litter and you might get one other person out of 100 to do the same.

I hate litter bugs. Almost as much as channel anchorers.

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Go home tonight, don’t use the bathroom just pee in the corner of your living room. Don’t shower for a few months. Don’t wash your dishes just leave them sit where ever.

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The problem with that suggestion is that this is the way that those people already live. And if you or I were to go toss out an empty pop bottle or coffee cup in their yard they’d be the first ones whining. When I was very young my dad took me duck hunting a public blind on state property. This public blind was a frickin garbage dump inside! You name it, it was in there. He simply told me this–If you could carry it in here, you can certainly carry it out of here…..That simple statement should be posted at every access site so these slobs get the idea. And by the way, the Fox River cleanup is this Saturday and me and my boys will be out there cleaning up after those same slobs again. Feel free to join us!

In this new generation of cyber space would it be legal to shoot photo’s of the pigs and post them on the inter-net?
If I saw someone piling garbage in the porta-pottie at Mille Lacs can I post a photo if I don’t name them?

If I’m at Graves Bay launch can I shoot them there?

Would there be a legal difference between that and the police posting pictures of johns picking up hookers?

I ALWAYS have a digital camera with me. So, PIGS beware, you may be on the inter-net……..soon!

BTW, I generally fish from Rainey South to LaCrosse and from the St.Croix West to around Alexandria. If you see someone taking your picture as you are littering, smile and wave cuz it might be me.

Does anybody else carry a camera? LOL

When I was running my bait shop I began to notice a lot of bait containers littering the local shore fishing spots. I put a 5 cent return on containers. It got rid of about 90% of the problem and also got me cheap bait containers and I got to feel good besides. Pretty good for a nickel!

Awesome idea YellowDog. Any little thing will help. Love2Fish.