Makai,

You are right. There are many more people who eat rockfish in restaurants and from fish houses without ever fishing for them than there are recreational fishermen. Instead of fighting over whether they should be a gamefish or not (after which NMFS will merely use other laws to curtail the recreational fun as governments often do) time and effort is better spent influencing the allocations and methods used to catch the fish. But, this is just my opinion and we all know what opinions are like...

Bill

By the way, we are still in to them here in the Chesapeake and I'm headed out now to catch a few...and I'll even release some of them!

If the 20 guys sell them to fish houses, who in turn sell them to the public and each makes a little money and pays taxes doesn't that really benefit more than the original 400? Maybe my economics class didn't really teach me correctly...

Just saying.

I am willing to bet my next measly paycheck I make less than you.

Lets not go overboard on this and add the draggers to this, they are illegally fishing for stripers any way. If you want to add them into the equasion lets add the recreational and illegals that take under size fish home. Maybe we need homeland security in on this.

Fly Rod what species are you going to target to pay for your gas oil and dock fees when you can't find a striper anymore? Do you not agree that the striper fishery isn't sustainable at the current rate that both the rec's and comm's are pressuring it at? It is a valuable fish to both of us it seems, wouldn't you want to do what you can today to save it for future generations?

The last time I drove down Old Commers rd. in Chatham during the commercial season there where as many out of state # plates as in state plates and they where parking for the (big kill) commercial bass season.
When I see $150,000 or more parked along the road it sounds like STORY TIME fishing.
New boat,new trailer,new boat.150,000---catch---maybe5,000 -10,000???
do the math

You are right, it didn't teach you correctly. Just saying.

A resource's value to the economy is not measured by the economic activity it generates. Buying fish at a fish store does not generate net economic value, since that money would be spent on some alternate food if the fish was not available. The net economic benefit if the alternate food costs the same is zero (if the fish is more expensive, as is usually the case, then the net economic benefit is negative).

The value of a national resource is measured by the net surplus (producer surplus and consumer surplus) it produces. This gets complicated, but basically the less I spend to catch or buy fish (i.e., use the fish for my needs), the more I have to spend on other needs.

This is why the usual economic garbage people post BOTH for or against commercial fishing is meaningless. That stuff (ie how much is spent) is called input-output analysis. It is useful for predicting what group of people in a region will benefit from a regulation change, but it has nothing to do with national economic value.

Any economic analysis that optimizes value of a resource, will always include some commercial activity. So if we are stupid enough to measure striped bass in a dollar value, commercial fishing makes sense. But striped bass, for most of us, have a different non-monetary value.....call it happiness value. Any analysis that optimizes that for the greatest number of people will favor gamefish status for striped bass.

There are numerous saltwater fish that can be caught and sold commercially. For the recreational community to ask for a single species that is protected for their use simply reflects normal people trying to optimize the happiness in their lives. That pursuit of happiness is a "god given right" according to our law. It does not require subservience to "economic value". Maybe you missed that in school?

The fishery will out last me. There are plenty of stripers around. Your just not fishing where they are. Shore fishermen will not catch the fish that you would from a boat. On most any given day when I recreational fish I can catch 24-30 stripers in the three to four hours that I am out there, I get tired of reeling them in and most are under 28"and they all get thrown back, I do not eat striper and once in a while I will give one away, a keeper that is.

When I go commercially very, very few of the fish I catch are under 38", virtually no discard, maybe a half dozen during the commercial season may be under 34", it averages less then one fish per day.


How many do you throw back to get one keeper???

There is nothing more relaxing then to be on the water in the summer relaxing at a sport that one enjoys, hauling in a dozen or so fish worth three bucks a pound and making about seventy bucks per fish, then taking out the wife to have a nice steak dinner on the deck of a lounge and watch a boat or two go by. :)

I'm more worried about not fishing for cod commercially.

Why? The same guys have been counting both populations.

That's the difference between you and I my friend. I see more value in a 23 pound striped bass than seventy bucks. Enjoy the steak dinners with your wife while you can.

[QUOTE=Mr. Sandman;905160]Where is the Black market numbers in this?

AH HA!!

now you hit the real issue. If the Striper became a game fish then there would be no Black Market. You can't sell them in the Black market if they don't sell them legally. No restaurant owner would buy a fish that cannot be sold anywhere. Problem solved.

Make it a damn gamefish and stop the nonsense of arguing whose to blame. It don't matter who's to blame. Just stop the killing, make it C&R and the problem is solved. And all the comms, who I have no problem with making money on fish, should then go and kill scup.

Numby,

You are absolutely right. It is nice to discuss with someone who understands economics and how to properly perform an economic analysis rather than the self-serving seekers I typically talk to here on the Chesapeake (Where incidentally, striped bass can be caught commercially with very little effort of outlay--thus providing a significant economic return). However, "pursuit of happiness" is not the only reason to make a decision, just as economic considerations are not a sole reason. There has to be some balance. Unfortunately we live in a world where no one is willing to find balance. It is always easy to say that anyone can get a fishign rod and catch a striper if they want. However, that is not the case...unless our welfare program will now include paid bus trips and government issued fishing gear (now that's a program I'd like to run! "Sorry, Miss. You don't qualify for the 3 ounce darter but you can have a 1 ounce pencil"). Thus the answer lies somewhere in between. Not with gamefish status but with better allocation of the resources using sound science and proper public policy decisions...neither of which are likely to be available any time soon...but one can hope.

LOL And just how few commercial tickets are there in Mass. So roughly less than 1 % of the fishermen have a release lortality that is half what how many thousand sportfishermen have.Pat put the numbers in perspective. On the west coast less than 2% of the fishermen keep 98% of the Salmon landed.The other 98% are only allowed to keep 2%.When so few do so much damage compared to the whole it's time for it to stop.Misrepresenting the facts just don't make it anymore.We in Maine have lost a lot of our fishing due to this backwards thinking as they don't make it through the gauntlet between here an the spawning grounds.There are fewer commercial tickets than there are people that fish the Vineyard Derby and the great majority of them aren't even used so the real damage is being done by an even smaller number.Funny but a handfull killing 6% is pretty sad in my book.

Those numbers are even more skewed, in the other direction when it comes to cod. So now with the cod crisis would you guys argue that cod should be a commercial species only?

Personally I don't think we will every see game fish status, there is just to much money involved.
Plus how many out there are going to ask for increased limits because there will be no commercial pressure?


1@36in across the board...

I hear this all the time from the commercial fisherman. Providing fish to 99% of the population. this sounds like a public service but in fact , in return for so much money per pound , commercial fisherman, ditributors and even the markets form a supply chain. Its fish for money. Now do you really think someone who goes to the market and buys the fish for $10 a pound is more "entitled" to the fish than a guy who gets up at 4am and goes down and catches the fish?

To "supply the masses" of consumers , commercial fishing should be commecial fish farming. Just like chicken and beef , the fish should be farmed. To think that a commercial guy is entitled to a bigger share of the pie because he sells his fish and it gets distributed is a good way of taking away the focus that an individual commercial fisherman gets more than his share (his share not the consumer market share) of the fish.

Anyway , I am not anti com fishing but lets not play games that they are doing a public service providing fish to the population. Its a business and they take fish and sell it for money.

The flaw in the logic in the quoted post is that the percentage of the population that eats commercially-caught striped bass is a lot closer to 1% of the population than 100%.

Do you labor for nothing? Do you give your stuff away? Why should fishermen who commercially fish do so for nothing? And remember the millions of dollars spent every year on striped bass management are supplied by the general public. How long do you think that will continue (especially in this economy) if the general public has no access to the fish?

I think his point was that some people boast about the "public service" the commercial sector does by providing table fare to those that enjoy striped bass but do not fish, while minimizing how much they mention that they get paid for it.

I don't think any reasonable person would expect commercial fishermen to work for nothing. At the same time, they're doing no more of a public service than the gas station attendant who puts gas in your tank for money or the dentist who cleans your teeth for in exchange for a check.

LOL Mike you an many others seem to forget all the taxes paid on fishing tackle-Wallop Buereau tax -paid before it's sold plus all the usage fees and sales tax. we pay for it not the genera; public stop mis representing the facts to try to make your point seem more valid.We pay our own way an the public gets huge benefits in access point paid for by all the fees we pay.Commercial fishing is so over subsidised now that it takes 5 yrs of income to repay one years subsidy.All you need to do is go into the government budget and the figures tell the story.

Nice try nut all of those Wallop Breaux taxes get plowed back into recreational fishing, the "public" never see a dime of it. Which do you think raises more sales tax sale of recreational fishing gear or the sale of those tons of fish in the fish markets?

Probably depends if you take out Lobster, Scallops, Surf Clams etc.. and just left finfish...

Many states don't impose sales tax on food purchases.

The debate will never be decided so
 

Do like they do for RSA's and make all users buy their fish. You will create one market for striped bass. Whether you are rec, commercial or a charter boat, you have to buy your fish, get your tags (like many have recommended) and you decide what you keep for the year. Every kept fish has to have a tag. It works pretty well on the commercial side in ny. So the market will determine this argument. If the bass are going for $20 a fish, and a commercial guy can get $50 a fish, he will buy more tags. if the rec guys drive the price of a tag to $100, well the commercial or charter will probably buy less. The # of tags is the tac for the yr, divided by average weight of the fish. So on the mass commercial side we get a million pounds, avg sale weight, call it 20 pounds= 50,000 tags. Add that to the what the rec side gets (estimated) and call it 200,000 tags. Create some limitations so no one can corner the market, and the govt has now maximized the value of the resource. All the users will have to adapt. I know no one like this, but it is the fair, american way to do it.

Cue anyone with deep enough pockets registering 100 LLC's and purchasing the maximum number of tags they can under each.

I support a tagging program for recreation fishing and *required* weekly reporting by charter boats. The commercial guys already have to report their catch. People will definitely under-report, just like people sell to the back door of a restaurant, but it will limit the recs who take their limit every chance they can and it will provide more accurate estimates on the number of bass killed.

Nice try Mike. what the recs spend each yr is probably 3 times what the commercial industry even comes close to especially with all the government subsidies they get.Last figures were somewheres around over a few billion just on the east coast.The only time commercial guys rent a motel room is to follow a school of fish to wipe out.MMMMM Like Chatham this yr.As far as where the money goes it's nice to see all those peirs built that are used by commercials that are paid for out of that money.

All charter boats that hold a federal license are already required to report on each trip. I'd guesstimate that close to 100% of charter boats hold a federal license.

The Wallop-Breaux funds can ONLY be used for recreational fishing purposes.

Thank you for the info. I was unaware. This validates putting them into a completely separate class even more because they are treated like completely separate entities in just about every aspect of fishing.

Since charters are required to report, does anyone have a source for the number of fish landed by charters last year?

I once agreed with Stipers Forever. Admittedly I did not really understand the fishery at the time.

The thing about the commercial fishery on Stripers, at least in MA, is it's very limited, with a hard well-regulated quota, and is completely open to the public (even out of state residents).

So for starters it's not a privileged few taking more than their fair share, it's open to anyone who's interested enough to buy permits. If you are not interested in joining the ranks, then don't, but it's completely open to the public (and I applaud MA for this).

It's also a drop in the bucket compared the recreational fishery (especially when you start considering release mortality) and is a unique opportunity for a small boat or shore fisherman to make a few bucks with rod in hand. It'd be nice if there were more of such opportunities that didn't require a big boat budget & commitment.

I'm not saying it's wrong, but the worst thing for the Striper is the serial catch-and-release fisherman. For 4 months+ out of the year a guy who's good with artificials or flys can go catch 30 fish a trip. That class of fisherman alone does far more damage than the 2 week commercial season, and there's no good way to curb their mortality.. And of course those same C&R fisherman all think they are taking the high ground, and are of the sort to support things like Stripers Forever..

Some people are really rubbed the wrong way by part time commercial fishing, I don't get it. Anyway, provided the health of the Striper remains intact, and it's done sustainably as it has, I see no issue with a well regulated commercial Striper fishery, especially when it remains small compared to the recreational fishery. If we hit a point when it needs to go back to 1 fish @ 36 inches for sustainability, then it will probably make sense to suspend the commercial season. Until then I'm all for it.

Jon