Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Sandman
That depends on how you look at it. How many charter fishermen are there? How many recs are there? compute the number-of-fish/fishermen and not the number of fish/"user group" and I bet it shows a different picture. Why should each user group get an equal piece of the pie when there are far more of one than the other?
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Bingo! Very, very well put. If there are 7x as many recreational trips than there are charter trips, then it would make sense that they would land significantly more fish.
Next, there will be arguments to reduce the rec Striped Bass take because the recreational guys take *insert sensational percentage here* more than the charters... but don't take mind to there being a fraction of the charter trips compared to recreational trips.
I fully support chartering and sustainable commercial R&R fishing. But when it comes time for regulation and setting quotas, there needs to be some sense to the system - fuzzy math based on politically motivated research will not yield an appropriately managed and sustainable fishery.