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Well, however many customers a guide has, they are each an individual and each individual can keep their 2 fish. Its still one guy keeping 2 fish versus one guy keeping 30 fish.
I'm not sure where you are going with this, but I think most conservation minded people would prefer that the rec limit was back to one fish per day. I like one fish 34" up and down the coast. Or even a slot that protects the breeding class of fish.
If the argument is stop comm fishing so we can make the rec limit higher, I'm against that. That's just greed.. As a rec angler, I don't want a bigger piece of the pie. I just want good management of the fish, the bait and the habitat.
I just want the stocks to remain strong and personally, I think overfishing of menhaden, herring and mackerel and pollution of habitat in the hudson and chesapeake (their main spawning grounds) is a far bigger issue than a hook and line commercial fishery.
My problem comes when the commercial side complains that the rec take is higher than the comm take, etc.
THe rec side and comm side are not equal. There are multi-millions of recs and some number of thousands of comm guys.
To use your example, if a guide has 4 guys in the morning, 4 in the evening and everyone limits out. Thats 16 fish. But its 8 guys who get those fish... not one guy taking 30. If you want to talk fair... fair says spreading 16 fish over 8 guys is more fair. But the fact remains that whether its 8 or one, that's still 16 fish killed. If you are just talking about the impact on the fishery, than its a good point. They can kill 16 fish a day for the whole season and may impact the fishery just as much. But talking about "FAIR"... at least its hundreds of clients versus one comm guy.
When the comm side wants to talk numbers, they ignore the fact that each of us as an individual should have the same access to the resource.
The rec take should be far higher, because there are far more rec anglers... does that make sense to anyone but me?
I have yet to have to see a good arguement that convinces me that another man or woman has more rights to striped bass than I do.
And the food on the table thing doesn't fly with me either. Lots of people struggle, lots of people lose their jobs, lots of people have to change their lifestyle to adjust to changing economics. I could lose my job tomorrow. It doesn't give anyone the right to monopolize a resource.
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