In my view, the Commissioners made a financial error when they recombined the regional opening days. This is not to say that I didn’t think there was a need for a slight program modification. Specifically, after a few yrs of regional opening day observations, plus the addition of the Mentored Youth Day (MYD), it seemed more practical from a water and air temp perspective to move the SE/SC regional opener and MYD each back a week, which is what has now occurred, but with the rest of the state opening a week later. What was lost by combining the opening days into one was the second benefit of the regional opening day scenario, which was also emphasized in-house when it was originally proposed. Specifically, the Commission could hedge its financial bets by taking two shots at having good weather and/or flows on an opening weekend and with angler mobility being what it is, a portion of the anglers who passed on fishing the first opener for whatever reason could take advantage of the second one, thus preserving some license sales that might have been lost. Likewise, there were substantial numbers of complaints received over the years when opening day fell on Easter weekend creating family gathering conflicts. Again, with two opening days that concern was potentially addressed. Finally, the regional concept addressed the potential issue of preseason stocking schedule completion problems by allowing an additional week or two to complete statewide stockings, particularly if there was bad weather (freezing rain, sleet, snow) or particularly high flows during portions of the preseason stocking period. Some sections of very popular Kettle Ck felt that pinch this year.
