Sportsmen bite into Simon's philosophy

July 16, 2001
By DAVE STREGE
The Orange County Register

IRVINE -- The sportfishing community is endorsing Bill Simon for governor, and the biggest reason is clear: He's not Gray Davis.

So when Simon made his opening remarks at a Sportsmen's Coalition Dinner in Irvine on Saturday night, the crowd roared its approval.

"The truth is, I am a fisherman and I am a hunter," Simon said. "The next couple of months, I'll be fishing for votes, and I'll be hunting Gray Davis."

Many sportsmen don't know who Simon is and don't really care. They only see him as the alternative to Davis.

Yet it appears that Simon is a friend to outdoorsmen. Who is he?

Simon tried to shed some light about himself when he visited with the media before the fund-raising event, which was presented by the California Sportfishing Coalition and Western Outdoors News.

Simon explained that he grew up fishing with his grandfather off the New Jersey coast and loves the outdoors. He has fly-fished, scuba dived and hunted.

"We have enough gun laws pure and simple," Simon, a gun owner, said of the gun issue.

He promised to fight for sportsmen, not to raise taxes and to base decisions on "sound science."

"Sound science" was a continuing refrain from Simon, and this was embraced by the sportfishing community.

Sportfishing was dealt a blow with the recent rockfish closures that were based on the "best science available," which was 25-year-old data, said Bob Fletcher, president of the Sportsfishing Association
of California.

The closures, Fletcher and the sportfishing community say, were not based on sound science and neither was the vetoing by Davis of the Rigs to Reefs bill last fall.

The bill would have allowed oil companies to cut off the tops of offshore oil rigs that have run dry and leave the bottoms as artificial reefs.

The bill, it was said, would have resulted in $500 million for marine conservation and restoration projects.

Without the bill, the oil companies are required by law to remove the entire rigs, along with their ecosystems, which will cause the destruction of habitat of some of the rockfish the federal government is trying to protect.

"It must have been a financial advantage for Davis," Simon said rhetorically. "He's is famous for doing things that are financially advantageous to him that he doesn't really care about otherwise."

Simon said he would be open to Rigs to Reefs, one reason why it is no surprise that the California Sportfishing Coalition has endorsed him.

The coalition is a new political action committee intent on protecting freedom to fish. It is designed to raise funds to support candidates and carry out awareness campaigns.

The group says its primary objective is to expose and reject politicians who are controlled by whom they feel are environmental extremists.

For more details about the coalition, visit www.savefishing.com.