As fishing involves pals, pals bring beer, and beer feeds bravado, there’s always a wager about which fellow will return home as the Outdoorsman Supreme, the fellow who retains bragging rights until he risks his crown on the next trip …
There are plenty that take part in the “first, biggest, and most-est” ritual; some with little intention to follow up on the boast, yet just as many take this pledge all too seriously, rising early and fishing late to take advantage of every opportunity.
Living at the apex of the food chain imparts a certain arrogance in all this, and were we plucked from our campsites by a hotdogs with hidden treble hooks, like fish, we might be a bit less boastful of our intentions – or a bit quieter while in the woods.
It turns out that’s exactly what’s transpired.
While we’ve not had fishermen disappear from their beds or fellows drag themselves back to the campsite mumbling about plasticine Big Macs tempting them on the trail ( each fitted with a 3/0 stainless), it appears we’ve been predated upon without our knowledge.
As the nature of the conversation I had with an agency representative implied litigation was forthcoming, and as I’d just as soon avoid same, allow me to be a bit cagey…
It appears a fishing website purporting to sell fishing licenses for all fifty states is about to be shut down, as it was solely used to collect the credit cards and personal information of fishermen. This “Phishing” web site was seeded to rank highly with Google search, so that the unwary might query for “fishing licenses online” and think they were transacting with a vendor or agent for their various Fish & Game departments.
It appears that California at minimum is on the warpath to close the site, but the damage is done already. No licenses were received, and all PII (personally identifiable information) data and credit cards entered are at risk …
No. I’ll not link to the site – nor reference it by name. These types of sites can link hostile code in an ad or a web page, and I’d be serving you all more trouble …
I think they get bragging rights however, as the rest of us got owned.