MakoMike, if you're not a commercial fisherman, I assume you run a delicatessen, because you sure know how to serve up the baloney! I wouldn't bother to respond because I really don't care what you think, but I don't want to let anything you say in your last post pass as accurate or meaningful.
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1.) the recreational striped bass fishery is economically more important than the commercial fishery.
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Your first two words are the only part of your argument that is important:
. The numbers aren't even close. The rest of your statement is babble.
2.) 40 fish a day. You must be referring to Massachusetts, which has a 40 fish per day limit for commercials. The only problem with that scenario is that 76% of commercial permit holders in Mass report selling no bass. None, not one, zilch, nada.
Those guys can still catch 40 a day (for personal use, don't ya know). I'm not saying they do, but that's a whole bunch of folks whose catch is not measured or estimated. So the commercial quota was filled by less that 25% of the licenced commercial fishermen. Would a rational person think that just maybe the commercial quota was exceeded? Yup.
3.) I'll come back to this one.
4.) I don't know who said quotas were constantly increasing for stripers. No one I know did. What I do know is that the commercial fishing industry has gotten the fisheries managers to accept the fact that commercial harvest is the quota (if filled) plus a fairly miniscule mortality number. Illegal harvest and bycatch are just about non-existent according to the numbers given and used. In the words of Santa, "Ho, ho, ho........"
5.) The truth of the matter is that approximately 1% of the U.S. population actually fish for striped bass. 99% of the remainder couldn't tell a striped bass from a walking catfish either in their hand or on their dinner plate.
Now, let's go back to 3#.
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3) Stripers forever is some sort of pure organization that has no self serving interest. Who do you think gives stripers forever the big money? Sportfishing businesses that's who. You really think they are getting by on $25 donations, I have a bridge to sell you Its all about money, its just that on the recreational side the money goes to the business that sell stuff to the recreational fishermen, while on the commercial side, most look at the money the fishermen themselves make
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Stripers Forever has received a total of zero dollars and zero cents from the sport fishing industry. I'm not saying we'd turn it down, but the truth is, we don't need much money. We have no salaries, we don't ask for expense money. We do what we do because it is time and it is right. We don't have dues, we don't have meetings, we're not a fishing club, we're allied only with the rights and interests of 3 million recreational anglers who have watched the fishery for the most popular saltwater fish on the East coast be trashed once, and are determined not to let it happen again.
It has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with trying to get the commercial allocation assigned to recreational fishermen. If anything, we'd advocate that the recreational harvest be trimmed until the results of the higher than expected fishing mortality just now being announced are fully assessed.
So MM, just back off and, next time, try to contribute to a topic you know something about.