Is North Carolina a possible Louisiana-class destination?

Guide Rick Patterson pulls no punches when talking about problems facing inshore saltwater fish and fishermen.

“North Carolina could be such a great fishing destination, it’d make any state on the east coast look pale, but it seems the decisions made by the legislature and the state’s fisheries managers mainly benefit a small minority,” said Patterson, a Burlington native guiding out of Cape Carteret.

Patterson is the Crystal Coast regional director for the Coastal Conservation Association of North Carolina; he has partnered with John Hislip on the Inshore Fishing Association (IFA) red drum tour angler in tournaments from North Carolina to Louisiana.

“North Carolina used to be a stop on the IFA circuit,” Patterson said, “but (it’s) the only (state) on the IFA tour that allows inshore gill netting.”

The IFA quit scheduling tournaments in North Carolina after several incidents, including one when tournament anglers had located a school of redfish and were casting to them, only to have a commercial gill-netter roar up in his boat and lower a net around the school. Also, during the administration of Gov. Mike Easley, the N.C. Highway Patrol began issuing citations to anglers pulling large boats because their trailers “didn’t have the correct licenses” and were considered “commercial vehicles.” The legislature reconvened in a special summer session to override Easley’s veto of a bi-partisan bill to amend that strict trailering law, but by then, the damage was done.

“There’s no telling how much income motels, hotels, restaurants, gas stations and tackle shops — and their employees — lost because of harassment of the IFA,” Patterson said.

More than that, he laments state fisheries policy decisions that are dominated by commercial fishing interests and have kept North Carolina a backwater for tourism and anglers’ dollars, along with damaging valuable stocks of fish.

“You gotta realize this state is within 12 (driving) hours of one-half of the U.S. population,” he said. “Louisiana gets a lot of visiting anglers, but they have to get on an airplane to get there or drive 2 1/2 days. We could get a lot of those people if we managed our fisheries resources for the most fish for everyone instead of making sure a small number of commercial fishermen are taken care of first.”

Patterson said he’s reminded of the movie “A Field of Dreams.”

“If you build it, they will come,” he said. “If you’ve got fish in the water, people will come. I’ve seen it in Florida, Louisiana and Texas. And people will fish no matter how bad the economy.

“IFA people have told me they won’t come to North Carolina until we solve our problems with commercial fishermen. IFA probably isn’t the only fishing group that feels that way.”