A proposed recreational fishing pier in Oak Bluffs is causing divisions among fishermen and local residents who would prefer to see the pier elsewhere.

At a hearing on July 20 the Oak Bluffs conservation commission referred a proposal by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game to build a 317-foot fishing pier off the North Bluff in Oak Bluffs to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission for review.

Since then, the plan has provoked passion both in support of and opposition to the dock, as a record of correspondence to the MVC illustrates.

The current proposal backed by local shore fishermen, who have long sought more public fishing access, calls for an L-shaped pier 200 feet north of the Steamship Authority terminal in Oak Bluffs.

Supporters of the plan, including the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association and the Massachusetts Office of Fishing and Boating Access, cite a lack of public fishing spots left on the Island, especially those accessible to small children and people with handicaps. Opponents of the plan are mostly residents of the area who fear the proposed pier would attract late-night revelers and rodents. Opponents alternatively propose placing the pier on the far side of the Steamship Authority dock, away from the residential area, where, they claim, water is deeper, fish are bigger and there is better access to public transportation and the Oak Bluffs police station.

In a letter of support to the commission, Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association president Janet Messineo fondly recalled the fishing community that sprang up along the Steamship Authority pier in the 1970s and 1980s. Ms. Messineo herself caught the largest false albacore of the 1986 fishing derby from the dock. When fishing from its rails was banned later, Ms. Messineo said fishermen moved to Memorial Wharf in Edgartown, which quickly became overcrowded during the derby.

“I have fished the Vineyard long enough to see our access to the ocean become very small,” she wrote. “With the building of many large homes on the waterfront, locked gates have been installed to keep the public away and it has been the shore fishermen that have lost the freedom to fish the ocean.”

William Geresy of Edgartown also supports the proposal. In his letter he drew attention to the commission’s own declared commitment to expanded fishing access.

“The Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association made certain that these challenges and strategies were included in the Island Plan and embraced by the plans authors,” he wrote.

Opponents of the plan do not dispute the need for expanded access, and in a letter the North Bluff neighborhood homeowners association said it “welcomes in principle the idea of a handicapped-accessible, public fishing pier.” But the association goes on to list a number of concerns about the project.

“Some of us actually swim there on a daily basis,” the letter says, “as does the general public, and we don’t relish the idea of getting snagged by fishing lines and hooks. Put it on the other side of the SSA ferry dock.”

Harvey Russell, a self-employed charter boat captain who lives on Seaview avenue, said the shallow water on the north side of the Steamship Authority supports very few fish of legal size and that undersized catch would be a problem. He also supports placing the pier on the opposite side of the ferry dock.

Patricia Wallace decried the plan’s lack of input from affected residents and said that in 20 years she has never seen anyone catch a keeper fish off the beach in question.

“Most of what I have heard in the [conservation commission hearing] in support of the proposal was based on hyperbole and anecdotal evidence based on a fisherman from Edgartown,” she wrote to the commission.

The commission will hold a public hearing on the proposed pier in early October.