State's 2021 Fish Ohio pins aren't missing. Just no one knows where they're at

 

If anglers are still wondering what has happened to their 2021 Fish Ohio pin featuring a longnose gar, it may very well be on a slow boat from China.

Or possibly the large pallet of pins is sitting in a warehouse. Or on a shipping dock. Or maybe anywhere but at the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Fountain Square headquarters in Columbus.

In effect, the pins are not missing; just no one one knows exactly where they are at.

“We’re checking on the status every day,” said Brian Banbury, the Wildlife Division’s executive administrator who oversees the agency’s Fish Ohio program.

“They could be on a truck or sitting on a dock, but we believe they are (somewere) in the U.S.”

Banbury said the agency has ordered 11,000 standard Fish Ohio pins and 1,200 Fish Ohio Master Angler pins. The total cost for these pins was $4,938.

To date the Wildlife Division has electronically received 8,955 Fish Ohio applications with 688 of these applicants qualifying for Master Angler recognition.

Under the Fish Ohio program, anglers are eligible to receive a pin for catching a length-qualifying specimen from 25 recognized sport fish species. Inland waters/Ohio River and Lake Erie each have special lengths for five of these species.

A Master Angler designation is given to any angler catching at least four different specimens from the recognized list.

The deadline for entering a fish for any particular year’s edition of the program is December 31^st.

This year’s Fish Ohio pin delivery is even slower than was last year, and in each case, the problem is traceable back to the COVID pandemic. A cascade of issues involving the ordering and supply chain - including likely the shipping crisis – appears as the root cause. Or certainly close enough to its trunk.

Thing is, says Banbury the Wildlife Division is obligated by Ohio law to following mandated bidding protocols. Likewise, the agency is required to obey the requirements dictated by observing current fiscal year ordering stipulations – and Ohio’s fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30.

This year’s winning bidder was Nitsom Promotional Manufacturing Corporation, a two-person company based in Toronto, Ontario and which specializes in promotional products like patches and commemorative pins.

The company’s web site indicates ties with China, and was incorporated as a “foreign corporation” in North Canton, Ohio in October, 2020, among other states.

Then there is the matter of submitting a design – which changes each year based upon a pre-selected fish species the Wildlife Division has picked. This year’s pin features for the first time a longnose gar while the 2022 pin will highlight a black crappie.

“We could go with a less expensive pin by using steel instead of brass, but, really, a steel pin would rust and since these pins are often worn on a hat or fishing vest that would not be good,” Banbury also said. “That’s why they’re made from brass.”

Banbury says that once the pins do arrive at the agency’s Fountain Square headquarters they should begin to go out rather quickly. The agency has the padded mailing envelopes and address labels all ready to go, Banbury says.

“We’ll have executive administrators and other staff preparing the envelopes for delivery,” Banbury said.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com