$40 for 2 year boat registration, isn't all that much. The key to not making it a huge expense, is not owning 20 boats!!! Or just don't register the ones that you don't use, is my way around it... Putting in one new launch is measured in the $Ms. Upkeep on others has to eat up a lot of those funds too. I would hope the cast net permits and other fishing related funds, stay with fishing related expenses, but can't see all that much of boating registration going to fishing. I would have to think that both pots are being pulled from, when it comes to the ever ending repair/replacement of the dams. That is one thing about man made entertainment reservoirs, they only have a rather limited lifespan, then need extremely expensive repairs.
I applaud everyone that goes above and beyond. A few guys that voluntarily purchase licenses and a few guys that take others that don't currently have licenses, doesn't solve what Captain is noting though. I have bought the Erie/trout combo since I have been 16 or it has been available. There are years that I don't do either, and pretty much know that I won't. I definitely know that I won't "get my money's worth". It helps a little, but know we need a lot more people to start buying licenses.
I would love for more stocked fish, but realize that this is likely a trend that will keep happening, as less and less funds are available to be brought in. There are just more and more options for entertainment for every age. When I was a kid, there was 1/4 of the entertainment options there are now. But still only got a fraction of the fishermen that the generation before us had. When many of you were kids, there was 1/4 of those entertainment options. When the major source of entertainment was listening to Howdy Doody, stick ball in a vacant lot or listening to a game on the radio, going fishing was entertaining to a lot more. A bit less entertaining to most, when you could have a triangle shape on your TV, "shoot" small dots at a round blob or watch just about any local sports team on TV or rent videos at the hundreds of mom and pops video stores that were around, if you didn't have a Blockbuster or others. When you have video games that look almost realistic, kids can act out what most of us could only do in fantasies or watch just about anything on their handheld devices/5-6 large flat screen TVs in their house or play sports that are 24/7 or go to water/trampoline/climbing/other "fun zone" places that are everywhere. Getting any kids interested in fishing, is kind of rare. With technology, who knows if any kids in the next generation will be fishing? It isn't just kids too. It is only time that our reservoirs will be filled with sports drink and can have a corporate sponsor. But it has electrolytes...
There is going to be a point in time, where they just stop stocking game fish that won't reproduce naturally. Money spent will be to maximize the native fish reproduction, maybe stock some native species to help the wild stocks or supplement bait fish, if/when there are low reproduction cycles. With how crazy the climate has been and projected to be, I would imagine this will happen much more than it has. That seems to be the direction they are going with walleye and the adding of habitat to reservoirs. I am fine catching whatever is there. Don't get me wrong, if walleye are there, I am going to try to put one in my frying pan. It they are no longer around, which they aren't ever really around my cooler anyway, I am just fine going after whatever is going to cooperate.
PFBC is going to ride out the trout circus for as long as it is keeping them afloat though. Other fish, I would be shocked if stocking numbers ever go up on a consistent basis. Unless fishing somehow goes "viral", and there is some sort of instant influx of cash to it.