Quote:
Originally posted by BasicPatrick
1st to commercial fish you need a general commercial licence whic costs from 35 for an individual (all on the boat of in your vehicle if fishing from shore must have the lic.) all the way up to hundreds of dollars to lic your boat as commercial......next you need to get a striped bass license for 30.
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BP,
Am I reading your post correctly?
For as little as $65/year, I can call myself a commercial fisherman and take up to 40 SB/day, while traditional recreational fishermen may only take 1/day, albeit smaller.
If this is the case, it sounds like I can get a comm license and then decide to fill my own freezer with SB as well as the freezer of my family and neighbors rather than sell them to strangers.
If this is true then I don't think it is a far stretch to basically consider the SB comm license as a defacto recreational saltwater fishing license. Afterall, the above scenario is what I do when I go cod fishing. Seems like the only difference is that the state has its hand out when fishing for SB but not other species.
For good or ill, the concensus seems to be that there is squat money to be made selling SB. Economically speaking this is either because there is too much supply driving the price down OR there is not enough demand to support a higher price. It seems clear that the problem here is really on the DEMAND side. I say this because otherwise, there would be some sort of outcry not to shutdown the comm season tomorrow because businesses (restaurants, grocers, etc) would be significanty hurt.
Also, when comm fishing from boat, does the boat need to be commercially "licensed" as well?
Finally, how does it work if I had a comm license with a SB endorsement and then I went fishing on a boat (see above) with some friends that weren't licensed commercially. Could I personally still take 40 SB/day or would the fact that I am with non-comms preclude me from fishing commercially.
Mike