Its so unbelievable that some view selling a striped-bass charter trip as "a fun, adventurous experience" as a challenging uphill battle.

its too damn easy... requires such a minimal shift in marketing. minimal.
I already have several strategies in mind (if i were a charter captain). How did I come up with these ideas? BY THINKING LIKE A CUSTOMER instead of captain.

I'm not really sure anymore if these discussions we are having are indicative of most charter captain's view, or of the views of a very few particular individuals who have lost hope and have already bought into their future failure before trying.

Attitude is everything.

A call girl sells the experience.
A hooker sells the meat.
Just saying. ....☺
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correction..............the council will vote(tonight hopefully) and I believe the Director has the ability to either accept or override

I'm worried about the fishery Buck... you know, if the road near your house that was 50 mph had become congested over time and it reached a point where a meeting was called to address the problem and it was determined that everyone was going to drive 25 mph on that stretch of road to address the issue ....but one user group, let's say taxis, were arguing that their out of town clients whom they shuttled to and from the airport would never accept going only 25 because they were always in a hurry needed at least the expectation of the ability to get their destination faster or they wouldn't use the service causing great economic impact to the region and putting some of them out of business. Also that, through acceleration equivalence, "for-hires" actually be would be much safer than recreational drivers because they are on the road more naturally making them better drivers, so for them, 50 is not much different than 25 . Would you be on board with that argument?


my personal belief is that the move to 1 fish is long overdue...and that it should always be 1 bass going forward...this is our best opportunity and we won't get another for some time.......we know that the fishing pressure will continue to increase, the technology will continue to improve and the bass population is not exactly exploding...they are quickly and easily exploited wherever they show up(shore and sea)...it's harder and harder to calculate what the effect will be in the future when schools get hammered relentlessly as has been pointed out but we know it can't possibly be a positive....as a Rhode Islander, I don't want out of state clients of and in taxis going 50 mph down the road by my house marked 25 mph for everyone else, they can drive 50 down their own street in their own town and cause whatever problems that ensue...I'm not going to their state to try to dictate what their laws and regulations should be or threatening not to visit if they don't accommodate me by treating me differently than their own residents......not hard to understand is it?

Charter boats are not the problem Scott… You guys are driving up the wrong road.
I guess you got to take some sort of a stand to feel good and this is the battle a lot of you chose to fight. Do what makes you happy but it most likely isn't going to make any difference except make it a little not more difficult for guys that are already having a difficult time.
As far as selling the experience,...believe me, everyone of the charterboats tries very hard to sell the experience each and every trip . Those that don't are not in business for long. If you do multi species charters such as cod , tuna and shark you need an offshore boat. I larger boat. These charterboats are not comparable to skiffs and inshore boats and thus do not offer the same experience as inshore flyfishing with one or two clients nor do our customers want that same experience.
Some of the comparisons to tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys are silly.
I'm not even sure if you can eat Tarpon if you wanted to.
Anyways buddy, I guess I'll just watch this play out and we will deal with it like any other regulation that hurts business. And we have been handed a lot of those.
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agreed(not the "only" problem as all user groups are "the" problem), they are, or can be, part of the solution....there is only 1 thing being voted on toight re:striped bass and that's option #1 vs option#2...there are plenty of problems, this just happens to be the one being addressed currently and charter boats(or their clients) are the only user group lobbying for an exception

Just read a commentary in today's ProJo oped entitled "SOS for Striped Bass in RI" by Charlie Gregory. The article supports one fish at 28" for all recreational fishermen, and explains why in layman terms. Good to see a favorable comment in the press for the general public.
Thanks, Charlie.

Curious as to how bad it's going to have to be before you change your stance?
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I'm not . I'm for a reduction equal to yours . 25%
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Here is the response I received from the letter I wrote to the RI Governor:

Dear Paul,



Thank you for contacting Governor Raimondo’s office regarding striped bass regulations. We appreciate you taking the time to reach out.



Striped bass are very important to Rhode Island and our fishermen. Governor Raimondo has been seeking input from the Department of Environmental Management on the issue, and understands the significance of the Department’s pending regulatory decision. DEM has received many public comments, which have been incorporated into the public record. Yesterday the RI Marine Fisheries Council met to formulate a recommendation to the DEM Director. The Director will then make the final decision.



Thanks again for reaching out. As always we welcome your thoughts, ideas, and concerns and encourage you to share them with us.



Sincerely,





Brad Inman

Director of Constituent Services

Office of Governor Gina M. Raimondo

State House, Room 115

Providence, RI 02903

(401) 222-2080

everyone got the same form letter back ..........they could have sent it to us last week / this descion was decided way before any of the so called meeting for the general public .. the 5-3 vote by the council all that did was make Coits life easier // if it went the other way .. she would have had to either vetoed it or looked for another job :bshake:

I agree Mike but ya gotta try.

iI know Paul . we all tried .......... but MONEY talks & B ull S hit walks :yak5:

I know many of you are frustrated, rightly so. But our arguments and public comments were not good enough to turn the vote - consider that the three members who voted to oppose 2 fish were two recreational fishermen and a Rod & Reel commercial fisherman. And one of those two recs appeared that he supported 2 fish but without the capt and mate allowed to keep any. I don't believe he or the R&R Comm would have supported one fish - they were looking for the compromise formerly endorsed by RISAA. So basically we had only 1 member, Rich Hittinger, supporting 1 fish. The five members who voted to support two fish were a member of the Party & Charter boat association, a Professor of Fisheries, an Environmental Engineer, a Shell Fisherman, and a Gill Netter. At one point of the meeting the Gill Netter looked at me and asked, "How many people would come to RI to just catch one fish?" Normally council members are not permitted to have exchanges with the audience. I couldn't believe he asked the question - so I responded, "Plenty". Then a Charter Captain from the audience looked at me and asked me, "Would you pay me $700 to catch one bass". I was shocked and would have loved the opportunity to answer but thought better of it.
Crazy night.

DZ, not that it makes any difference but I smirked with that one.

I was noting though that when the board asked for a motion, and both Richards raised hands to make a motion, the one chosen was the Richard of the RI Party / Charter group supporting the motion for 2 fish. If the council chair had asked the other Richard, the one supporting the Rec position, the motion *might* have been the 1 fish, which would have needed a second and the follow on debate. That other possible motion would have probably failed anyway due to the makeup of the council.

The law wouldn't have been to allow you to CATCH one bass. It would be to KILL one bass. These stupid bastards cannot differentiate between catching and killing. I assume that catch & release doesn't compute in their myopic brains.

He meant kill obviously. I would have responded that if I was trying to get my monies worth of meat, I would go to the store.

To some, me included there is a certain amount of satisfaction in catching it ,cleaning it ,grilling it ,and eating it
It's also nice to know how fresh the fish you are eating are and not some striper, as you would say, that's been baking in the sun for two days waiting for a commercial day
Don't be so damn dismissive
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One fish no way, but two fish is so totally worth it
/sarcasm
What a bunch of BS
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The charter captain is the one who made the asinine comment about 1 bass & $700 as if you don't get your $ worth at 1 fish but that extra fish makes the difference.

I'm just curious as to what you guys put as the percentage of dead fish for caught and released striped bass?
Especially you guys that use live bait ?
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I can not honestly say, with any certainty, how many fish that are released
end up dying... no one can.

But I can however say, with certainty, that 100% of the fish that are not released end up dying.

That is a statement that simply can not be argued...

From what I've read it's between 8 and 15% for all hooked stripers ...that's no small figure when you think of the millions of fish caught and released by recreational anglers. We are talking in the hundreds of thousands of killed fish . If you're really worried about your children growing up in a world with no striped bass maybe you should quit fishing for them and go catch scup.
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15% is still less than 100%
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Doesn't cleaning one fish satiate that craving?
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there is no 100% percent it's 85%
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Good point
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But you don't catch any fish bc you don't move off your rock.:rotf3:

No....dead fish are 100% dead....
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you are pretty smart Buck, this is a great way of looking at it, our effect as individuals, personal responsibility....

the number used is actually 9% for mortality,

I'm sure that you'll agree that both private rec and for hires experience mortality and I'd argue it's much more difficult to effectively release fish from a boat than from shore....gaffs, live lining pogies, dropping eels, trolling umbrella rigs(multiple fish) all more popular with the boat crowd(they aren't throwing plugs or bucktails from a party boat and they don't gaff every fish from shore)

here's the part regarding the charter that you may or may not like or accept but the guy driving the boat is responsible for every fish caught or killed from his boat....the fact is that if he was not driving the boat none of those fish would be killed or caught, none of his clients would take a fish if he didn't drive them there and bait their hook on that trip and thus impact the population ....

I don't know what you think the average charter boat takes per year in terms of bass but can was use low numbers and say 4 of the maximum 6 clients get two fish, discount the mate and captain fish for now...that's 8 fish per trip, can we use 100 trips, had a "full time" captain say he did 100 last year and he said that was low due to weather. That's 800 fish (conservatively). If any of these numbers seem out of line I understand...I'm not an "expert"...just like to ask obvious questions. Can we also assume a mortality for released under size and over limit fish? Can we assume that they catch don't keep at least as many as they keep? Call the mortality 10% to keep the numbers easy...80 fish mortality...that's 880 fish very conservatively over the season that this one captain has overseen the taking of, or in my opinion"is responsible for" as I pointed out, they never would have been caught by those individuals without him driving the boat.

I'm going to use myself just to be as accurate as possible it obviously varies from one angler to another, I fish more than most average private/shore recs...(I love catching, filleting and grilling fish by the way), I'll include the bass that I kept last year as well as all of the bass that the people that I fished with last year in the totals and I'll overestimate regarding catch(that''s what fishermen do) and mortality...... although I do place more emphasis each year learning and improving catch techniques and release methods to improve this and many folks that I fish with do also.

So, I don't know exactly how many trips last year but if I use 100 bass landed that would be high. I didn't keep any bass but three friends that I fish with did. One was big and the other two were 28-30 inches, I can't remember the last time I fished with someone who took 2 bass. so that's 3 bass...plus mortality 10% that 10 fish...13 bass

so it would take me
and the folks that I fished with last year... approx. 68 years to remove the number of fish that the guy above did with his boat...

and here's the thing, those guys probably won't keep any next year...many private and shore recs ARE moving to other species (scup) and methods including freshwater, other sports even, I talk to them every day, many private/shore recs move in and out of the sport and are anything but consistent in their impact

if you want to compare on an individual basis, sure, there are more private and shore recs but the impact on an "individual" basis is not even close and I think most look it or compare on an individual basis

additionally, your average shore, private rec is far less likely to be locating and taking the large breeders with a few exceptions whereas they are targeted by the experienced and more accessible to boats in general....the impact mushrooms when you include experience, electronics, actual time on the water...a guided charter allows someone who would likely never impact the fishery on their own, to do it in ways that most other anglers either can't or won't...that to me is a special responsibility that the captain bears many times a season...