Red is right about crystal ball numbers and they have the foresight of a rear view mirror. Look at Restori's (sp?) summer flounder write up in first pages of this weeks fisherman. With all the charter fishing and head boat fishing reports down in terms of numbers of people who when out, plus the insane fuel prices that kept a lot of boats tied to the dock, according to the stats, we recs set records on how many # of fish were taken and a all time high mortality.
This is :
They now believe the mortality was increased because they raised the limit so high that you had to release a lot more to get a keeper and since they assume 10% die you get more dead small fish. However, unlike bass, fluke become mature early and we are killing a big part of the spawning mass.
What astounds me is the difference between comm and rec now is huge. comm R&R fluke pounding 14"...for some reason, they do no damage?
We need fresh management with new more accurate methods. These guys have tried now for decades and what they do doesn't work. We are not better off today then before. And yes I do think the rec fishery is more important to our society than the comm side for a number of reasons and that the laws should reflect that.