The Coastal Conservation Association

I'm proud to be involved in the Coastal Conservation Association. Let me tell you about their cause.

This is a pretty exciting week for me. After a few days of relaxation with the family I’ll be heading off to Atlanta for a meeting of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA). My brother-in-law, Rick Mottern, is real active in it and they’re opening a new chapter.

I’ll be there to support the cause. I think I’m going to speak, too. I said before that I’m excited about the trip because we all have to pull together if we’re going to save our natural resources. This is an organization that works to do just that. I’m proud to be involved, and proud they want me to be involved. It’s pretty neat.

In case you don’t know much about the CCA here’s how it works. They promote the health of our coastal waters through strong angler support and lots of legal and legislative activity. The idea is to improve the sustainable health of our coastal resources. A statement on their website, www.joincca.org, says it all:

“The CCA network is engaged in hundreds of local, state, and national projects that initiate scientific studies; fund marine-science scholarships; build artificial reefs; create finfish hatcheries; initiate hydrologic and contaminant studies; monitor freshwater inflows; support local marine law enforcement; and more.”

You might be asking yourself, why does a bass angler want to get involved in an organization that’s about saltwater fisheries? After all, black bass live in fresh water, the ones that don’t live in brackish water, anyway.

The answer to that question is simple. It doesn’t matter much whether it’s fresh or saltwater. If there are fish and other creatures swimming around in it the issues are the same. We have to preserve the outdoors for future generations. Not just for our kids and their kids but for the generations that’ll come after them. We’re going to be around for a long time. We want to make sure the outdoors is, too.

You can’t just worry about saving bass fishing. There’s more to it than that. It’s about saving everything. We all have different likes and things we want to do outside but the one thing we have in common is that we want to enjoy the things the Good Lord and Mother Nature has given us. If we destroy everything there’ll be nothing left for the next wave of humans.

That’s the thing I really like about the CCA. They aren’t just interested is saving the coastal environment. They’re interested in saving it so we can use it. They want to renew the resource. You know, it’s not like they’re trying to preserve it and then not let anybody get any benefit out of it. And, they’re big enough to make a difference.

I’m not saying a small group can’t make a difference because they can. But if you have 206 Chapters in 17 states and something close to 100,000 members you have the size and the money to make a bigger impact. That’s just the way things work, unfortunately.

Next week we’ll talk about hot weather bassin’ strategies.