Ahh, we haven't had a good & lively rec -v- comm debate in a little while
...
There are 2 primary arguments in favor of the commercial fishing of striped bass in Mass: 1 - the desire of commercial fishermen to make money on them and 2 - the demand of a market place for them in restaraunts and at the market (OK, I'll give you 3 - the commercial guys like usually like fishing for them too and many would still chase them if there was no monetary reward).
The rec anglers far outweigh the comms in numbers of people, in money generated for the local economy - (not even including the charters) through everything from tourism to purchasing and maintaining boats, buying tackle, and even the odd website (although we ain't makin' any money here
). And it is an often serious, even evangelical pursuit by those of us recs that fish for them. Many of us arrange significant parts of our lives around fishing for stripers to extract what we do in quality of life and hapiness (or sickness depending on point of view). Also, many people use it as a small and for some, a larger portion of our diet.
So who should have more of a claim to a sustainable percentage of the fish? I'd say the largest group should have the largest access to the fish (and currently does). In my opinion, that doesn't mean to cut off the commercial guy at his knees. But to allow a sensible allocation of fish and a strong penalty for abusing the rules. That penalty should apply to both recs & comms that break the rules too (although that should be another thread).
The thing that peesses me off the most about the commercial fishing is the bag limit. You get a decent group of boats hammering 40 decent fish per day, day in and day out, you make a lousy price for the fish. Supply & demand. I see someone getting 1.65 a pound because the market is flooded a bit of a waste when less of a glut of fish might yield better prices and reduced pressure on the fish. The recs already give a reduced pressure on the fish because we are held at one per day instead of two in a slot or two over say 34 inches per day. Mass's DMF "Voluntarily" restricts the amount of fish the rec anglers can have to less than what we are alotted by the ASMFC. A couple years ago when everyone freaked that coast wide, the recs would have to give back some of their allocation, Mass wouldn't have needed to as it already had reduced the rec take to lower levels than what was required. Just recently when DMF dangled an extra fish in front of us recs and had us salivating - they also danglend an extra hundred something thousand pounds for commercial too.
Clammer - you're correct....
CS - the number of recs killing 3x as many fish through C&R mortality and throwing some meet on the dinner table (and thru pure stupidity) is probably fifty or maybe a hundred times the number of ACTIVE commercial fishing guys - not the guys that have the bass endorsement on their license but the ones that actually bring more than a couple per year to the market. I'd say the large populace should generally outweigh the small # of commercial BASS guys.
Likwid - what do you mean? Just some clarification...
Quote:
|
And as far as DMF goes, why don't you check them out instead of bashing on how much fish they take?
|
OK - enough for right now....