|
The one factoid you all seem to be missing is that there is no hard tac for recreational bass fishing! Yet in all commercial fishing there is a quota which equals 65000 bass, yup they are over 34" inches and yes they may be breeding fish, but they have bred at least once and in most cases 2 or 3 times. My question to you guys is this...how would SF bill have helped the fish? answer in short it wouldn't. They are a greedy organization, and anyone that knows me knows that I do stand for the fish, for example I will not fish for baby tuna...do I begrudge the guys for doing it? at first yes I did just like you guys are begrudging the Ma commercial fisherman, but do i now? Nope...have at it...opinions are great but with opinions you need compromise, SF offered no compromise and even went as far as to say that the legistlation was not aimed at stopping commercial fishing...but line 4 of the bill read...prohibit the sale of wild striped bass in massachusetts that included the importing of bass from other states...that is completely selfish...do I personally think the bass is in trouble? Nope and I fish for them more than most of you...I start in the surf in late April and finish my charters around the end of September/early October...I never had a problem catching fish at all from the boat or surf...the surf was different last spring as the bluefish were thick early so I fished bass at nite and was extremely successful...sometimes you have to change your methods thats what makes it fun!
But to say that the massachusetts commercial fishery should end and Maine will have some fish is wrong. To say that the Ma commercial fishery is the problem is wrong as well. Charters for example kill a lot of fish...I take 12 a day for my customers if they want them and most of my clients want to release the smaller fish and keep the BIG ones...can u imagine that a person wants to keep a big fish...infact there are periods in the summer when I don't see a fish smaller than 30 plus inches...so lets do the math together...there are about 7 charter boats in barnstable...if each does 60 trips and limits out once a day at 12 fish that is 5040 fish, now sesuit has 7 boats thats another 5040 fish....rock harbor has 30 boats thats 21600 fish...this does not include doubles and is being constructed in a vacuum...that is half of the commercial quota and that was being modest in my numbers of trips...now add your weekend warriors...the charterboats on the south side....plymouth...green harbor...scituate...Gloucester...boston....do you see my point...our commercial season is a drop in a bucket and in no way a problem to any one of you...so I say please step off your high horse and stop blaming the commercial fisherman for what you say is the problem...the problem in the chesapeake is not massachusetts...it is chemical fertalizers...a moratorium is not going to stop farming is it?
Capt. Doug Amorello
|