It's easy for those who fish, boat, camp, hunt and hike to feel overwhelmed as the places to do those things in South Florida steadily shrink and many of the bureaucrats who manage those places seem intent on keeping people out.

That's why it was so refreshing to attend the South Florida Anglers For Everglades Restoration meeting Tuesday night at Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World in Dania Beach.

SAFER was started a little more than four years ago by local bass club members to keep the canals in the Everglades from being filled in during the 'Glades restoration project. Those canals offer some of the best bass fishing in the country, as well as access to good duck hunting and bird watching in the marshes that border the canals.

From the beginning, the Everglades restoration plan did not take recreation into consideration. The goal was to restore historic sheet flow to the 'Glades, which had been a slow-moving river through the grass from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay.

Then a dike was built around the lake to prevent it from flooding and canals were constructed in the Everglades to move water more efficiently. The northern Everglades were turned into farms growing sugar cane, vegetables and sod. Coastal cities expanded westward, right up to the very edge of the Everglades.

Once it was determined that the 'Glades needed to be saved, rather than paved, the restoration plan was hatched. To the planners, the obvious course was to eliminate all the canals by pushing the levees into them and, voila!, sheet flow. Of course, they did not plan to buy up the Everglades Agricultural Area or the city of Weston or tear up Alligator Alley and the Tamiami Trail, which would make that water flow even better.

Many South Florida bass anglers figured their days of catching 100 or more bass in the L-67A Canal, which runs from Everglades Holiday Park to Tamiami Trail, were numbered. But the founders of SAFER did not want to go down without a fight.

Their goal was to restore the Everglades so that recreation was still allowed. That was a foreign concept to planners with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District.

SAFER members attended public meetings and shared their thoughts with the Corps and the district. Instead of being antagonistic, SAFER worked with the agencies. Slowly but surely, the planners realized that restoration with recreation wasn't a bad thing and that canals such as the L-67A did not have to be filled in and closed off to anglers, birders and waterfowlers.

The best part came at Tuesday's meeting, when Kim Taplin of the USACE said the Corps had five alternatives for the Modified Waters part of Everglades restoration. Mod Waters, as it's known, basically seeks to get more water from Water Conservation Area 3A, which is west of the L-67A, into WCA 3B, which is east of the L-67A. From there, the water can flow south of Tamiami Trail in the Shark River Slough at the north end of Everglades National Park.

The original 1992 plan called for three structures across the L-67A, which would have eliminated boater access to a large stretch of the canal. Thanks to SAFER's efforts, the Corps looked at other alternatives. Some involved weirs, which water would flow over when it was high, and some involved plugs in which parts of the canal were filled.

The fifth alternative, and the one that Taplin seemed to favor, would put banks of six culverts in the L-67A levee so water could flow through the culverts. Adjacent to each bank of culverts would be a 60-foot fixed weir of varying height so that water could flow over the weirs. The L-67A canal would be filled in for 100-foot stretches alongside the culverts and weirs, but a 20-foot-wide boat channel would be cut through the center of each plug to allow bass boats and duck boats to run through the canal. Gaps in the levee of the L-67C Canal, which runs parallel to the L-67A, would allow the water to flow into WCA 3B.

After Mod Waters is done, Decomp takes place. That's the part of restoration where the Everglades is decompartmentalized to further improve the flow of water into WCA 3B.

Dewey Worth of the water management district said Tuesday the district is going to "pilot test" its plans to improve water flow. That means the district will build a model in the Everglades and test its impact. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, it'll be removed.

"We're pretty happy with the results," SAFER President Al Ovies said. "We were worried that the precedent for closing the canals would be done during Mod Waters. Now it gives us hope that they might not fill in the canals during Decomp."

Part of the problem with the original Everglades restoration plan was that it was done by people who had spent little time in the 'Glades and had no feel for what goes on out there from an environmental or recreational standpoint.

SAFER is made up of people who have spent much of their lives in the 'Glades, and their knowledge was a revelation to many restoration planners.

"We always felt that once science got involved, we would be vindicated," said Ovies, who also praised the influence of former district director Henry Dean, who was adamant about opening district lands to public recreation. "All this scientific data is starting to pop up and go against them, and it's starting to back up what we say."

Steve Waters can be reached at swaters@sun-sentinel.com or at 954-356-4648.