Advocates for those who hunt and fish say a ballot proposition that would establish a constitutional right to those sports in Arizona is long overdue.

If you want to fish at Fossil Creek, north of Payson, you’ll need to follow a particular set of regulations, put into place by the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

But opponents to Proposition 109 say all hunting and fishing regulations in Arizona will be jeopardized if the proposition passes in November. The measure's backers say that's not the case, that they're just trying to constitutionally protect the right to hunt and fish from anti-hunting activists.

Thanks to $23 million from a fund Arizona voters created in 1998 to preserve open spaces, Scottsdale plans to add about 2,000 acres of state trust land here to the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. To Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, it’s money well spent.

A ballot proposition promoted as a way to safeguard the right to fish and hunt in Arizona would politicize decisions about wildlife by giving the Legislature sole authority, leaders of a new campaign against the measure said Friday.