B/B
Your right .. anyone can get a Ma. commercial license / that why [I thnk} its in the neighborhood of 5000 of them .
In RI it is a very limited entry .. I believe there are 2 or 3 available for 2009 .
So the last few springs /when we have had alot of market size bass in the bay ......... guys that wanted in .were SOL >>. it least RI is very strick of issuing any kind of commerciL FISHING LICENSE . you can,t get a quohaug license or clam license either // again that fishery too will let a very few into that industry / soley based on the stock & license that didn,t renew for one reason or another .
Back when licenses were readly available / ..everyone had them Inculding out of start anglers // & there are still OOS anglers the fish RI commercially
When they put the freeze on the catching & keeping & selling of stripers . many of these people didn,t renew their licenses ... I can,t count the number of guys that are pissed they let thier licenses go ..
even many diggers / that,s a tough way to make a living & often when a guy has a opportunity to get a real job // they grabbed it ... then things went sour & they also are SOL .
We /the average guy doesn,t even know how many people actually sell fish .
the state does because we have log books that have to be filled out in detail on a daily basis & turned into the state quarterly ;
the reason being / the average commercial fisherman does n,t know .. if that @ one time RI issued a Multi-purpose license / which almost covered all kinds of commercial fisheries . This lincense is no longet available thru the state . The only way one of these can be transferred / if a fisherman has documated proof of so many landing in a certain period of time & he sells his whole business . his complete fishing rig // & even then the paperwork is passed thru the level in the dem & is approved by a high level offical '
getting back to the M/P licenses that are still active .. we don,t know how many are being used for what .. some may be being used for only one fishery / while others may being used in a few / I know alot of guys th a t have the M/P license that only are doing one fishery / but they were wise enough to keep paying the additional fee to keep the M/P ,,, that has always given them a option / Most of us way back used it for mainly digging & fishing / no clue now ;;
Slip >>>yA possed out of the plug forum
