Quote:
Originally Posted by numbskull
NO. Recreational numbers are made up by charter boat statistics, that are relatively accurate based on reliable sampling, and non-charter catch, that is extremely inaccurate and based on fishing effort and catch rate estimates obtained by angler sampling. The Technical committee report I gave you the link to above explains that there is good reason to believe these estimates are wildly overblown and the huge recreational catch numbers (that you and others use to chastise concerned recreational fishermen, and defend continued commercial catch quotas) are in fact pure fantasy.
It is important to realize that the ASMFC does not care, however, about what percentage of the catch is recreational, and what percentage is commercial..........they care about total catch and total population.
Since they have good reason to suspect that recreational fishing pressure is much less than the number they are using, they have good reason to suspect the fishery can handle more commercial take, hence their move to increase the commercial take.
Now keep in mind they wanted to increase the commercial take by 10%.
Yet they suspect the recreational catch is 50% over estimated.
That suggests that 100% of the non-charter recreational catch equals about 20% of the commercial catch......or that commercial landings are FIVE TIMES larger than NON-CHARTER recreational landings.
Now you can argue that charter fishing is recreational fishing, but the bottom line.......which fits my experience........is that the average schmuck recreational guys that make up 90% of the people using the resource end up killing a much smaller total share of the resource than the small number of guys making money off the fish.
Gamefish anyone?
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Charters / Headboats / Guideboats / Party Boats or whatever For Hire vessel you have taking Recs out fishing is doing exactly that Recreational Fishing. These guys dont take away from any Commercial Quota up and down the coast nor do they have their own Quota allocated to them in any species they target.
The truth is nobody will ever know the exact, or even close to the exact numbers of Fish Recs are catching.....
As for Gamefish, you can wish it all you want and its not going to happen anytime soon.. They were just trying to increase com limits this year... Especially since all the states with the exception of Maine and North Carolina,(Northern/Southern Limits - Migration water temp sensitive), Have had absolutely no problem filling their com quotas year after year. The pics of all the thousands of Dead Bass floating off the north Carolina week after week give people that dont have a clue the illusion that the ocean is paved with striped bass....