^
Instituting a slot limit as prescribed will in effect create a trophy fishery if other states follow suit, which is exactly what we all want, no? We're essentially instituting a 40" minimum size limit. Cutting the limit to one a day and lowering the bar on size equates to lower fishing pressure as well as lower discard mortality. People will give up sooner with a fish in the box as opposed to culling through shorts in order to get a keeper.
At worst, we're creating a neutral harvest/mortality picture for small fish by cutting the daily bag to one small fish a day and allowing our breeding stock repeated attempts to reproduce. Right now we're slaughtering the breeders as soon as they reach minimal breeding size.
Other states will eventually have to follow suit once pressure from the newly organized "recreational fisherman's" lobby is created through the federal registry and ensuing saltwater license. Its just a matter of time as the recs greatly outnumber the commercials. Recs aren't organized yet, but its coming and is as close to a done deal as one could ask for.
If all this stuff falls into place(and its likely it will) we'll be walking on the backs of large fish in 5-10 years.
