2015 saw some pretty acrimonious discord for the Bahamas. Efforts to shut down the DIY fishery in spirit, if not in fact, were brought out and paraded around and the ensuing arguments left no one happy.
And then… nothing happened. It has been at least a couple of months since the Attorney General’s office took the proposed legislation and we’ve heard not a peep out of them. The potential reasons for this are many. Here are a few possibilities:
- The AG’s office is waiting for US anglers to be distracted by something shinny before breaking out something really controversial.
- The AG’s office is waiting until they deal with more pressing issues, like hurricane relief, before picking something like this up.
- The powers that be are just letting it die a quiet death, knowing there is no interest in estranging Yank and European anglers who come to the Bahamas and drop some serious coin, year after year, especially with Cuba coming on-line and other destinations like Belize and Mexico still being pretty competitive.
All of that is just total speculation and speculation is all I can really conjure up because the news out of the Bahamas is just the sound of the wind through the mangroves.
As I write this, here on January 1, it seems very likely nothing much will change in the Bahamas in 2016. So, plan your trip. If anything does happen, it won’t be over-night and you’ll have plenty of time to alter if things go badly, but I think the odds of the most odorous of the proposals coming to pass is fading away like that school of bones moving off the flat into deeper water.
- If you liked the story above, check out these stories below
- How to destroy the Bahamas, a Guide (0.546)
- Some more thoughts about the proposed Bahamas flats regulations (0.546)
- Bahamas - Bad Math (0.546)
Tags: Bahamas, DIY, Regulations
Spot on analysis. You’d think they’d do the logical thing… When are politicians consistently logical?
More and more I’m hearing that this thing is buried, maybe at sea, but buried and not coming back any time soon.