[Mr. Sandman]

I've been at it for a while as well. (Below is me (Orient Point) in 1964 I think). Like most kids, my dad got me into fishing. He would boat fish 3nights/week for bass in season and I would go whenever he let me. If the tide was real late and it was a school night I had to stay home..those were the most difficult for me esp when the bite was on. (this was all on eastern LI) I would surf fish any chance I got, sometimes sitting on a rock all day with rod in hand all by myself. My mom thought I was nuts but I was not getting into trouble so she allowed it. Its what I still like to do too. We never sold a fish. The bass limit was 16" with no creel limit. We released anything we didn't eat. We rarely took more then 2 bass home from a trip. We also fished for fluke, weakfish and bluefish too and released any fish we were not going to eat as well.
I didn't start selling anything until the late 70's and even then it was sporatic when I did sell. By 1981 I stopped selling and started C&R releasing any fish not headed for the table and still practice this for the most part today. Part time fishing for money is not going to change your lifestyle significantly (no matter how good you are) and therefore I reasoned it is better off just letting them go. Besides, you feel pretty good about it. If you want money, get a real job, part time comm fishing is not a real job in my view.

IMO the today's fisheries "count" of what recs actually take does not accurately measure the amount of catch and release going on today and therefore recs are "blamed" for killing lots of fish that they really don't.

Also, MA does more harm then good by allowing Recs to keep a foot in both rec and comm fishing but they are so caught up in the politics of it all they get see the real problem. They need to shut fishing down it if is a problem and they just cant do it...ie codfish...20+ years of "management" and it is worse off today then ever but they still let you have a shot at taking breader and small fish, they continue to let the comm guys take limits but recognize the species is in danger...huh? SHUT IT DOWN for a decade and build the stocks back up. Jesus, it is not that hard. Screw the commerical interests...who the heck told them to go fishing in the first place? When I went comm clamming and something happend to the water quality, they shut it down and put hundreds of full timers out of work. The same should be for the fishermen. If the stocks are hurt'n, shut it down. We should care more for the health of the fish stocks then what a comm fisherman puts on his 1098 form.