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Fly Rod, your starting to tic me off...gimmie a Friggin break! Don't blame the lack of forage fish on sports fishermen...it wasn't they who wiped out the bunker and are trying to take every last mac, squid herring and sardine in the sea. How come you don't see regulators moving to stop that? Like I said...I don't like what I see, and you ARE missing the point because you have $ in your eyes.
The commercial SB fishery is set up to benefit the few self appointed fisherman who think they can make a fast buck here, nothing more...why else would they limit the amount of SB licenses now? Don't more licensees generate more $ for regulators? It is a quota system...it should not matter how many fishermen there are. What they don't want is everyone running to get a cheap license so they can take 40 fish a day too...pushing the price down and hitting the quota sooner...."lets just keep this for ourselves"...the guys who showed up first should keep all the fish?.... but it is a public resource and it would help the job market, heck a raffle system is fairer then what they are doing now.....
If commercial sb fishing is such an important food source, they open it up to the recs....keep the quota the same. It’s such a scam it’s laughable. Just shut it down.
I don't deny that some uninformed sport people take an undersized fish...Its wrong and I condemn that, this should be better controlled by enforcement and education.... but it is not. I think most sport fisherman care a lot more about this fish then commercial fisherman. I think that for every sport fellow who takes and undersized fish there are many more pure catch and release guys...But please don't make the commercial fisherman out to be the good guy here...the commercial black market here is huge and unaccounted for, not just for bass. And the bad apples involved commercial fishing have done far more harm then the sport angler who fishes a half a dozen times a year and takes one schoolie home.
There have been studies done that show that sport anglers *contribute* over $600 /lb of fish they catch to the economy (in terms of boats, fuel hotels, travel, fishing gear ect. Not to mention the millions and millions of positive social things that come from sport fishing which are priceless.... take a kid fishing for the fist time and you will know what I mean. Inshore Commercial fishermen do far more harm then good esp. for such a special fish as the striped bass. If you can't see that then I feel sorry for you .
Raven, making striped bass a game fish would take the price off the fishes head...there would be no commercial taking of striped bass country-wide. It would be a regulated sport fish. Meaning you may fish for it and it would be regulated (size and take limits) you just can't sell it. Also, it would stop the black market..Resturants would be fined if it were found on their menu. For example, sailfish is a game fish.
IMO this is the best way to fight commercial striped bass fishing, make it a game fish, overpower these state by state games with some fed action. ...And I think it is actually do-able if you get the right political power behind it. There are FAR more rec voters and people who have in interest in rec's fishing then on the commercial side...the political types can clearly see that. The commercial side just has a louder voice at the moment and many have self-appointed themselves to some position of power only to put $ in their pocket. This will change.
Over fishing is just one variable in the striped bass equation, you need food for them to eat and clean habitat for them to spawn and grown in. The SB can give us some great memories that will last forever while providing enormous benifits to socity, why sell that off for less then 2 bucks a pound? Its not about how much you catch...commerical types don't understand that.
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