AUGUSTA, (AP) – Acting in response to a federal law that takes effect in 2009, the Legislature is considering a bill to require recreational fishermen to buy a saltwater license before they cast a line off the Maine coast.

“It’s been a tradition all up and down the coast, not just in Maine, that you don’t need a saltwater license,” said Rep. Leila Percy, D-Phippsburg, who introduced the bill calling for a $15 license fee for residents and $30 for nonresidents. Residents over 70 and all children under 16 would be exempt.

Charter boat captains would pay a single fee allowing them to take unlicensed anglers for fishing excursions.

The proposal, which will be the focus of a hearing Monday before the Committee on Marine Resources, is an outgrowth of a federal law requiring ocean fishermen angling for striped bass and other anadromous fish that travel between freshwater and salt to sign up for a federal registry starting in 2009.

Two years later, in 2011, the government will likely begin charging a fee, possibly around $30, said John Borman, director of fisheries science and technology for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The whole purpose of this national registry is to get contact information so we can contact people and follow up later and ask them where they went fishing and how often,” Borman told the Maine Public Broadcasting Network this week..

The policy is designed to collect better data on the habits of recreational saltwater fishermen and their impact on the economy and fish stocks, he said.

Under the provision in the recently-enacted Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Reauthorization Act, states may adopt their own programs, as long as they turn over valid data to NOAA. Some of the 10 coastal states, including Maine, that have no saltwater licensing program are now considering whether to institute one.

Percy predicted that Maine anglers would be supportive of her legislation.

“I believe that when they learn that it is coming down from the feds and that we as a state had a choice of designing a program that suits Maine people rather than having the federal government do it, I think they will be relieved that the state took the initiative to be proactive about the issue,” she said.

Based on NOAA estimates that roughly 370,000 people – more than half of them Maine residents – fish Maine’s coast each year, state officials estimate that the bill would generate between $3 million and $5 million a year.

The revenue could be spent on much-needed efforts to improve the health of the fishery, officials said.

“We could put a substantial amount of money into providing access for fishermen along the coast,” said George LaPointe, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources. “We could have an aggressive shad restoration program, and shad could easily rival striped bass as a recreational species in tidal waters. We could invest funds in trying to find out why winter flounder aren’t abundant near shore.”

Still, there were indications that recreational fishermen may be cool to the idea.

“There’s so many people that just want to go down to the end of the pier, the water, down to the beach for a day with their wife and kids and say ‘I want to throw out a fishing pole twice a year,’ and I don’t see them wanting to pay the $15 dollars or whatever it’s going to be,” said Dana Eastman, owner of The Tackle Shop in Portland. “It would be nice to see that shore fishermen didn’t have to worry about paying it.”

The committee is expected to get an earful at Monday’s hearing from defenders of the “freedom to fish.” An airman who grew up in Maine and is now serving in Iraq has already weighed in with a letter to the panel.

“I am fighting for our freedoms daily,” wrote Air Force Master Sgt. Dwight Maling. “And being able to fish in Maine without a license just happens to be on this list.”