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Guys, it's about SUSTAINABLE fisheries. If you can make the fishery SUSTAINABLE then it doesn't really matter WHO is catching as it is user group allocation at that point. The trick is to prevent OVERFISHING of a species. Personally, I wish the focus was on herring and especially bunker, get these fish fat again...
As long as the biomass numbers stay close to what the scientist / fishery managers hope for, we'll be OK. If they drop, there are triggers in place to rectify a down turn in the population of the striper. Toby is right about the slot limit. Taking smaller fish will add males into the pot and you could protect breeding classes longer.
Stripers Forever just wants more allocation for rec anglers - user grab (I am not comm and I have never sold fish). We, as anglers need to protect the forage first with reasonable TAC from all groups. Granted, comm bass fishing in Mass (and elsewhere) is screwed up and needs lots of work but its a small slice of what these fish are...
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