[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Mr. Sandman

I don't care what the "scientists say" there may be (according to them) 14X as many SB around now then in 1982 but all I know is that I caught a load of bass back then, it was outragous, both in quanity and quality, nothing has compared to that since then. (I released most back then as well) Until that kind of fishing returns, in my view there has been no recovery. Looking at the results from your BI weekend are so sad. When there were 14X fewer fish around, you could catch several 30s' before dark on a regular basis. Fishing after dark yielded some monsters and just not one or two fish either. And it was not just BI and montauk, it was MV, Nantucket, and the cape had these fish.

IMO the counting method is so stone-age it is not known how many fish are actualy killed. But regardless who is killing what, both comm and bycatch kills should be the first thing to stop. The rec kill can be controlled too thru limits but lets stop all comm and bycatch killing and see where that gets us. These make no contribution to the fishery or economy.

I don't belong to sf but support the gamefish status bigtime. I think that you guys that don't support it are paranoid that it will lead to some Nazi like fishing contols and prevent you from wetting a line. I doubt this as SB is the most economically important fish on the east coast.

I think that you guys that support comm bass fishing then complain that the fall run sucks need to re-think your position a bit more. If I take a million # of fish from your hood in August...will it hurt the Sept/Oct run...ans: YES indeed.

Fully agree.