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Piemma - one size fits all really won't work - some of the states have inshore limits that allow the taking of smaller fish in greater numbers. One of the advantages of this is that those smaller fish have much higher numbers of males than females. A few resources have stated that somewhere around 1% of 20# fish are in fact males so mixing up the catch, coast wide, is a good thing. Now I fully feel that there should be a reduction in all the size classess, rec & comm, but this will have little positive effect if the forage fish are all gone. We have depletion in river herring, sea herring, mullet, mackeral, and most important, menhaden. These fish are under nourished due to their numbers and the further depletion of bait.
If the overall numbers do show a drop, Ammendment 6 will execute predefined triggers to reduce the overall harvest to prevent another collaspe. But we need more bait.
The annual Year of Young surveys point to good to excellent spawning in the key areas like the upper Chesapeke so part of the equation is fixed yet these fish are staying hungry due to lack of bait. On the otherhand a couple years ago some people (not me :shrug: ) were complaining about the lack of bluefish....
Did I mention we need more protection on the bait??
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