I put a message on the homepage about this issue:

http://www.ctfisherman.com/

i cant believe people are saying they wont pay.
thats what these people want..

they dont need the money, they just dont want you there.
they are scumbags
Image how much the home values will go up though... Its a smart move for them. Then the town rakes in more tax dollars then they what they get from 1000 or so anglers..

if they get this passed, you can bet they will be doing it on every other lake that has a house on it. This is not about just one lake..


the key point if you go to legislators is to make sure you demonstate the history of these people toward keeping people off the lake. This is just anotehr shot at it and it sets a bad precident for shutting down public access to every lake in teh state.

I sure hope so I have a Cwood lake house that's about to go on the market this spring.

I have lived on Candlewood for 35 years and it's finally at the point where I just won't go out there in the summer anymore. It still amazes me that the Smallmouth fishing is so good even though it gets all that pressure. I don't see the sticker changing anything other than collecting another tax and giving the lake authority more power.

Being a local Candlewood guy I agree in spirit with what Chris says but I am against this specific plan because it can backfire badly and actually increase usage.
What will happen is every lake in Ct. with public access will petition the state under the new "Candlewood law" for a sticker program. The precedent will be set and there is no legal way the DEP can deny that application. There will be a process and vetting of the application but the end result will be approval. Within five years every popular fishing lake will have a sticker to buy and most fishermen can't afford to buy a sticker for every lake they currently fish. So what happens is they buy a sticker for Candlewood and maybe one other lake close to home. Bass clubs do the same. For example, instead of six Ct. bass tournaments a year on six different lakes, as they might do now, this club may have six tournaments on two lakes one of which is Candlewood. Now Candlewood has two additional tourneys from this club because the club membership can't afford more than two stickers per member. That increases usage of Candlewood. Previously the club spent less than 17% of their time fishing tournies on Candlewood and now they are spending 50% of their time on Candlewood. Every club, statewide and out of state, does the same thing.
Contrary to popular opinion, Candlewood still has plenty of room to schedule additional tournies in the spring and fall so the over-flow gets on the lake but crowds it to the maximum from the third Saturday in April to ice-up in December.
We saw this knee-jerk reaction with the Lake Waramaug boat launch situation. Lake Waramaug pulls off an exclusionary plan screwing non-resident boaters and the next thing we knew Bantam Lake closed their "public" launch they rented to the DEP. Only threats by the DEP to build a deep water launch on state land intimidated them enough to renew the lease.
Though the out of area state residents may not ask their state reps and senators to vote for this Candlewood sticker law you can bet that every lake authority is telling their reps and senators to vote yes so they can do the same thing. This will be pork barrel at its finest and we fishermen will be the big losers.
My proposal which I have made already this week to the CLA calls for a state law that establishes a DEP lake authority fund to be administered by the DEP Boating/Lakes Division. It will be funded by state tax revenues so that all residents who pay taxes will share in the expense of managing the state's lakes WITH PUBLIC ACCESS. Each lake authority would apply for funds based upon the estimated number of boats using the lake. The boating division would be responsible for the final decision on that estimate. There could be approvals for special programs too. By limiting this to lake authorities only on lakes with Public Access it incents having public access.
For non-residents, they will be required to purchase a non-resident boating license priced similar to a non-resident fishing license which they already are required to purchase for inland waters. They will also have to show reciprocal proof of a Safe Boating Certificate from another state or secure a Ct. Safe Boating Certificate as a pre-requisite for being issued the boating license. This puts all users of public access lakes in Ct. on an equal footing. Every user, resident and non-resident, is paying a share of the cost of maintaining the state's public access lakes either indirectly through taxes or directly through licenses and certificates with all of these monies directed to the Public Access Lake Authority Fund.
This will insure equal access to our fisheries resources, maintain the flexibility to fish any public access lake in the state without onerous and logistically unfriendly boat stickers, provide funds on an equal shared basis to all public access lake authorities and be one stop shopping at one organization at the DEP Boating/Lakes Division for everyone instead of a fragmented, locally driven program of exclusion affecting every single state wide angler.
I know this is only a straw-man proposal that certainly can be improved upon and that not everyone will agree with it but I am firmly convinced that there needs to be a better state-wide plan available because the Candlewood boat sticker plan is going to kill us. Keep in mind, the intent of the sticker program is to simply fund the CLA, we are best served if it is funded by the state and non-resident licensing and permitting.

I think people are missing the point here.

The issue isn't whether or not the lake is "crowded". The issue is that this program is implemented by an organization (CLA) that is no friend to the angler. CLA would absolutely want to see non-resident anglers gone.
Under this proposed bill, I would literally be funding an organization that wants to see me out.

Want funds for patrols? Have the state run some sort of sticker program that covers ALL state launches, then CLA could go fight the state for a slice of that pie. By supporting this particular bill, I feel that I'm cutting my own throat in the long run.



.