SB 127 has been introduced into the Maryland General Assembly. If passed, the bill would prohibit a person from sponsoring or holding a marine gathering without obtaining a permit from the Department of Natural Resources; require the Department to adopt specified regulations governing marine gathering permits; require the Department to notify the local law enforcement unit of the county in which the marine gathering will occur before issuing the permit; and establish specified civil and criminal penalties for a violation of the Act; etc.
Right now it looks like a "marine gathering" would be defined as an event with 50 or more boats so it may not be something MRA has to be concerned about, but you never know how these things turn out. DNR has said that there would not be a cost for the permit, but the language of the bill allows for the collection of a fee not to exceed the actual cost of issuing the permit.
One thing DNR wants to accomplish is to use catch data from tournaments to use in their analysis of the fisheries. That is not a bad thing and thanks to our website, there are 13 years of results they can look at. It may mean that we begin to see more of a DNR presence at our tournaments.
For those of you who remember, many years ago (before the MRA) a competitor brought a fish to the scales that was short of the legal length. In addition to getting disqualified from the tournament, the person had to pay a fine because an officer in attendance witnessed the violation and wrote him a ticket. Talk about rubbing salt in an open wound!
If you want to see more about the progress of this bill you can go to http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/billfile/sb0127.htm where you can read the bill and see if it progresses through the Senate, to the House and then to the Governor to be signed into law.
