[scottw]

The RI meeting was interesting tonight...Dennis can provide more but I'd like to say that he made a very impassioned plea facing a committee that appeared quite content with their recommendation of 1@28 for recs and 2@32 for for-hires going forward. They appeared ready to sail through with this recommendation offering only a passing mention of the loud call for 1@28 for ALL recs while offering repeated justification for their recommendation...Peter Jenkins from the SWE and Dennis spoke eloquently and intelligently for the majority of the rec anglers who will fish under the 1@28 regardless and will be, in my opinion, relegated to second class citizen status as for-hires and their clients(most of whom are not RI residents by their own admission) will fish side by side or "boat by boat" with their recreational clients under an entirely different set of rules and regulations......not only will we have the spectacle of RI recreational residents fishing 1@ limits as RI for-hires with their out of state clients fishing 2@ but we will also see RI residents fishing 1@ at as out of state for-hires cross the borders and fish our waters at at 2 @......there is something wrong here.....particularly when two of the board members cited reasons for recommending the mode split to A) keep things uniform so that boats won't be fishing side by side with different regulations....and B) keep regulations uniform to make enforcement easier..............

seems that mode splits create both of these problems....what was clear to me is that these guys don't acknowledge the rec fisherman as the statements above indicate..... need to keep up the pressure