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thing and which allowed them to claim that they were fishing with a net of the 

 regulation size. The result of all this legislation has been that we have come to 

 believe that the point toward which we must devote our energies for the present, 

 must not be the question of securing laws affecting regulation, no matter how 

 perfect they may be, but that we must seek first of all for a rigid enforcement of 

 the laws which we have. 



Five or six years ago our Commission prepared a well digested bill which 

 provided for the appointment of a fish warden whose compensation should be an 

 amount fixed by the Bill to be paid out of the treasury of the State. It further 

 provided for the appointment by the board of six or eight deputies, who should 

 be paid a stated salary from the State treasury, and whose jurisdiction should be 

 co-extensive with State lines, and who might oe sent into any part of the State 

 to perform their functions. Such appointment permitted, in case of complaint, 

 the sending of a deputy into the neighbourhood where a complaint was made 

 who was a stranger to the community, and over whom no one would have influ- 

 ence in connection with the discharge of his duties. The Bill came before the 

 House and after due consideration was passed by a large majority and was then 

 sent to the Senate. In the meantime, the sportsmen who were interested in 

 game came to us and asked us to incorporate a game protection clause in the Bill. 

 This we refused to do on the ground that the State was not engaged in the propa- 

 gation of birds or game, and that such additional duties as we should be required 

 to perform with that addition would be imposing more upon an unpaid board 

 than we cared to assume. As a result of this decision our bill was killed, and in 

 its stead a most pernicious bill was passed which provided for the appointment 

 of one or more wardens in each county in the State, whose compensation was to 

 be fixed by the boards of supervisors. This bill received the signature of the 

 governor and became a law. The result has proved what we anticipated. The 

 boards of supervisors having in almost every instance refused to fix any adequate 

 compensation, and the result is that, with the exception of one or two localities 

 in the state, there is no enforcement of the laws. So strong has become the op- 

 position to the warden law as it stands to-day that the governor in his last 

 message recommended to the legislature that a bill bs introduced abolishing the 

 warden and his deputies. 



We are somewhat hopeful that we may yet have an efficient enforcement of 

 such laws as we have, by the adoption of a better plan, and to secure this we 

 shall undoubtedly encourage the formation of sportsmen's associations in the 

 different localities of the state among those people who feel a keen interest in 

 the question, and thereby secure the needed legislation. 



The only efficient protection we have in Michigan to-day is the protection 

 that is enforced by such bodies of men as these that now exist in several locali- 

 ties in the State. As it stands now it is everybody's business and therefore 

 nobody's business, and the laws are practically unenforced, except in occasional 

 instances. I have never yet known of a complaint being made against persons 

 who are engaged in net fishing in the great lakes. Such cases as have been 

 brought for violations of the law have been almost universally those that have 

 occurred in the inland waters. 



We propose to correspond with men in every part of the State who are 

 known to be interested in the enforcement of the laws, asking them to organize 

 sportsmen's associations, and to select and send delegates to a State convention 

 which shall meet at some central point in the State to consider the various ques- 

 tions in which we are all interested and in this way we shall secure a force of 



