Quote:
Originally Posted by piemma
EXACTLY!!!! Toby, while I agree and there is empirical evidence, that the recs kill fish thru lousy C&R, there is no denying that the comm guys kill substancially more fish then is realized. There is the "market" and there is the "grey market". The back door of restaurants that buy, illegally from comms.
To say this doesn't exist is sticking your head in the sand. This is where a complete moratorium would help. If no one can have, sell, keep, kill, trade, whatever, Bass then the stocks would recover. It worked in the late 80s and it would work again.
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Those guys - commercials who sell illegally - are not commercials just as recs who poach are not recs. I've said this a million times but they are POACHERS and should not be lumped as such as the designation of rec/com relates not just to a license to sell, but harvest allocation.
I know of - confirmed through conversations with, not just hearsay and speculation - a disgusting number of recreational anglers who sell illegally. I also know plenty of coms who do so. Many of these men and women are those who a lot of us look up to and some of us such as yourself used to fish right alongside. Hell, I was approached openly at the RISAA show several years ago by 2 individuals trying to put me in direct contact with a person who would buy all the bass I could supply them with! Neither of these people held a com license at the time as best I know, but one of them has since gotten their captain's license. I was as much pissed off that they would do this publicly as I was the fact that they were so open about it and flat out didn't care.
There is recreational, there is commercial, and there are the poachers.
And to think just because "striped bass" cannot be sold commercially will end the selling of striped bass flesh is absurd. The amount of fish sold as and consumed under the name of another is profound. Again, this is not hear say but from enforcement actions, news stories and conversations with former seafood buyers.
I know this kind of conversation is a losing battle but it bothers me to no end when the blame is forced elsewhere in the face of glaring evidence.
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