How to change behavior

Worst I’ve seen this shoreline.

Not really mad, just sad. Sad how people don’t feel they are a part of their communities, take pride in the land we are blessed to have, and mostly they are simply to lazy to throw stuff away.

How does one change this? You can’t fix stupid, or you can’t change lazy, whatever, this is our fishing community and it needs to be addressed. Signs at baitshops? Litter posters at local fishing holes? Face to face confrontations on shore?

It’s no surprise fishing piers and docks are not fought for in our park systems by the people developing them. We can be a filthy community at times. I’m sorry but you don’t see hippy kayakers pi$$ing on the environment.

If these were softball fields or bowling alleys etc the litter issue would be dealt with, so how do we??

It disgusts me, too.

It’s sad but unfortunately the norm these days. People need to be educated better, no doubt signs and propaganda will help.
I believe the biggest issue is lack of law enforcement.
I fish basically every weekend of the year and the lack of conservation officers is obvious. I know they are hiring more that are going through the training process now and imo they can’t come soon enough.

Very frustrating. I don’t know the answer, but I also know it’s too easy to say “Gee there’s no simple answer here…”

I’ve thought about starting an Adopt-a-River chapter thru the Conservation Corps. This used to be run by the MN DNR but it’s transitioned solely to CC I think.

If anyone here is interested in banding together to form an IDO team for any certain area, it could be a good way to work together. I would be very interested in creating a team for pool 2 — or even just a certain section — to start.

Yes it is sad and maybe you should be mad. But let a old guy offer you this….50 years ago it was 90 times worse. It took laws and a concerted effort then to start cleaning things up. Today it takes enforcement of those same laws. The problem is how much of your tax dollars are you willing to spend to have a cop(s) writing littering tickets?

Just need to keep posting videos and writing everyplace you can. For as bad as your video looked it only takes about 10 people to quit littering and that shoreline looks pretty good.

Where along the river was that?

I don’t want to go all treehugger but it’s about time to ban plastic water bottles. They have to be the largest contributor to pollution out there.

I agree 100% it sucks that people suck and it only seems to get worse in the winter time all these people that all sudden picked up ice fish in the last few years seem to leave a lot of trash on the Lakes every time my son and I go out he is 7 I make sure any Trash we see we pick up and throw away and hopefully that’ll stick with him for the rest of his time

I also confront people everytime I see them litter it doesn’t always work but sometimes

Matt Moen wrote:

I don’t want to go all treehugger but it’s about time to ban plastic water bottles.

And plastic bags. As a dog owner I have dozens of them at home right now ready to pick up dog poop, but plastic bags need to go. I don’t even know why it hasn’t happened yet. The wife and I were in Hawaii this past February, they don’t have plastic bags. Big surprise/adjustment? Yeah, but you figure it out, and either use a few boxes or other type of bags, etc. We adjusted very quickly and there’s no reason everyone else can’t as well.

I wish common sense would win out on things like this, but unfortunately conservation and protecting the environment has become a political thing, even an “unmanly” thing. Look at the ban on the west coast (can’t remember if it was Washington or California) of plastic straws. People now use derogatory terms to describe those people and a certain news channel loves to make derogatory jokes about that state and its people because they got rid of plastic straws. Until the “cool” thing to do is protect what we have it’ll never change.

Sad to see this thread nhamm, I actually posted something in the Ice Fishing forum last year about doing more last year to keep trash off the ice. It’s a recurring theme unfortunately.

I’m not quite 70 but I can recall a few points of correlation to other events of the past and all this litter crap happening. And its more than saddening. And its more than behavior that needs to change.

Only a matter of time before they lock the gate and make that spot off limits. Its a shame as it is my favorite fall location. Only line of defense at this location is to take a little bit of trash with you and face to face confrontation.

Definitely an uphill battle. Hard to get people to care about things. Instant gratification wins out more often than not. Has likely been that way forever. Sadly, the most straight forward solution is for other people to clean up after others like the volunteers that do ditch clean up along the highways.

It’s enforcement of the laws. Not by only law enforcement, but by ALL of us.

Additionally, it’s just taking the responsibility of cleaning it up when you see it. Countless times, a load of crap gets tossed into the back of my truck from a boat launch. Worse part is seeing 3, 4 , 5 or more people just walk by it and did nothing. Not looking for a pat on the back for what I do, just hope that it’s contiguous and others would do the same.

It’s not the bottle or the bag it’s the pig that left it behind. I have hauled dozens of empty cans from public lands over the years. You can’t legislate against stupid. The bottle might last longer but is not the issue.

It’s amazing how I can feel like a total crap heel if I accidently litter but so many don’t pay it any mind.

Jonesy wrote:

It’s amazing how I can feel like a total crap heel if I accidently litter but so many don’t pay it any mind.

I had a red bull can fly out of my box on my road so the kid and me took the mini bikes back to pick it up. I would have stopped right away but I didnt notice and my son didnt say anything till we pulled in. ( probably because he knew I would start his pw50 up)

Besox wrote:

It’s not the bottle or the bag it’s the pig that left it behind. I have hauled dozens of empty cans from public lands over the years. You can’t legislate against stupid. The bottle might last longer but is not the issue.

No it’s the bag and bottle. That stuff doesn’t rot.

But it does recycle, point is metal or plastic should not be left behind…..

Sad sad sad…
The worst thing on this planet is the human race.Sad but true

Good luck changing people’s mindsets! The people that do it aren’t concerned with your concern.

I bring a bag to all my shore spots and I pick up litter in natural areas when I can. Look at it as getting satisfaction from helping solve the problems losers create.

As for enforcement, it’s not littering until they leave and when they leave they are gone.

at all the community shore spots, you have this here locally in the QCA. sometimes its bad sometimes its ok.

The worst is the desmoines river at saylorville dam. It looked like the yellow river in china. just garbage everywhere.

You give a treat to dogs when they do something right, maybe we have to start giving treats to pigs too?

munchy wrote:

You give a treat to dogs when they do something right, maybe we have to start giving treats to pigs too?

I’m thinking a lot of these people already get handouts

The one thing I like to do is pick up any trash I do see, I am not going to make a day of it but I tend to pick it up as I come across it. It is no huge thing to do and my not be making a big impact but as others have said, I just hope others see it and do similar. We only have one world to live on, might as well try and keep it nice.

mplspug wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Munchy wrote:</div>
You give a treat to dogs when they do something right, maybe we have to start giving treats to pigs too?

I’m thinking a lot of these people already get handouts

no kidding beside a few garbage piles were food stamps.

Starts at home. My wife and I are making a serious effort to stop our use of single use plastics (bags, bottles, take out cups and others). The convenience of these things is great, but it is not that hard to have a water bottle in a vehicle or re-usable shopping bags. We are not tree hugging hippies by any means, just trying to do our part.

@huntinforfish I would not say you sere a tree hugging hippy for those actions. The way I look at it is that I love to hunt and fish. In order to do those I need clean air, water, and a healthy environment for these critters I love to chase a place to live. If we want to take from these places we need to give back as well to be able to keep doing what we love. So eliminating waste by utilizing reusables is your way of helping. Once you start talking about trying to energize your body by sun gazing, then I would likely call you a tree hugging hippy…

High water moves a lot of trash around.

I think p 3 is dirty with trash and then I think about all the water downstream and the amount of cities next to the water. Must make our waters and shorelines look pristine.

Two days ago, at my local spot, I found a 3’ plastic spoiler (for cars) wedged in some tree branches about 6’ up. I got it down and threw it in the 50 gallon drum that is my city’s trash can there. Yesterday, it was thrown about 10’ away from the drum. So I threw it back in the drum. Today, it was actually still in the drum. I guess we will see if it’s still around tomorrow.

Besides that, I couldn’t count the miles of line I’ve found and thrown away. Usually from snagging it with my lure then handlining a hundred feet of line (that’s usually WAY to heavy for anything in the water, I swear people think these lakes have whales in them). I have found some good lures still attached to stray line though so my good deeds don’t always go unrewarded. Although, clean wilderness is my reward

Beer cans, plastic/styrofoam bait containers, clothes, empty cigarette packs/butts…. I swear most people just don’t give a @$*#. It gets real bad around Free Fishing Weekend when 1,000 people come out of the woodwork twice a year to complain about how bad the fishing is then leave all their crap behind for nature concious people, like us, to pick up for them.

I absolutely can not stand nature slobs. It’s an issue that we all deal with and I’m glad there are people out there that share my disgust for these ungreatful pigs. It’s like these people just assume nature will always be their personal toilet.

One spot I go to there is rolls of carpet, actual toilets, bathtub shells, full trash bags… just thrown into the tree line. It makes me sick. Sometimes literally.

That’s awful Ryan.

Fishing line is the worst picking up. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes not at all. But, I’ve had my fair share of breakoffs as well so line snatching is something I always try and do.