Anyone familiar with my writings here or in my Bruce’s History Lessons column knows of my admiration for the constitutional republic of limited government our Founding Fathers established.
One hallmark of that government was a dearth of government regulations. The Constitution was about preserving liberty, not regulating behavior, but—needless to say—things are different today, even to the extent that, if Huck Finn and Jim had grabbed a fishing pole and a can of worms, and, rather than fish the Mississippi River, had tried fishing in my home state of Virginia, they would have encountered a regulatory nightmare.
First, they would need a fishing license, so they would have to go to the website of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC). There they would learn that, for starters, they need a different license to fish in freshwater than in saltwater. According to the VMRC, “A recreational saltwater fishing license is required in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay, its tidal tributaries, and Virginia’s Territorial Sea.”
And what is the “Territorial Sea”? It is “the waters within the belt, three nautical miles wide, that is adjacent to Virginia’s coast and seaward of the mean low-water mark—from COV 28.2-100; this is the outer Atlantic Ocean boundary of Virginia tidal area requiring a license from the Commission.”
However, Huck and Jim would need a freshwater fishing license to fish upstream of the designated lines on the following waters: the Potomac River to the Route 301 Bridge; Rappahannock River to the Route 360 Bridge; Piankatank River/Dragon Run, that is the 1st set of power lines immediately upriver of Anderson Point; the York River System to the Route 33 Bridges; And finally, on the James River, a line connecting Hog Point and the downstream point of the mouth of College Creek.”
Got that? Freshwater license needed upstream of those areas. Because if you fished “downstream” of these exact same areas, you would need a saltwater fishing license.
But there is some good news for Huck. Since he is only 13, he doesn’t need a fishing license, nor does he need to register with the Virginia Fisherman Identification Program. Alas, for Jim, he does, although there are some exceptions. One is: If he fishes his own private property he doesn’t need a license (which is still problematic for Jim because he is a slave and therefore owns no property). The other is: Jim doesn‘t need a license if he is “fishing from a public fishing pier with a VMRC-issued license that allows pier anglers to fish without a license.”
Run that by us again? If Huck and Jim were fishing today their story would have had a different ending, because they both would have starved to death.
