SM, Unfortunatly there are rules set forth to help protect this species, and although you caught a fish and it was bordelin. In my opinion you should not keep that fish. It isn't going to waste, as the ocean is a feast or famine world and something will get fed by that fish, even though it may not be a human.
If you keep that fish and you are checked by the environmental Police, you have no more rights than someone out there taking fish intentionally short. That is the law, and as sad as any one of us feel about deep hooking a fish and having to throw it over the side dead, because it isn't the legal size is just one of those circustances we cannot avoid as long as we put hooks in the water with the intention to hook up on a fish. It happens, and at least by practicing catch and release most of the time, we are protecting alot more of the species today than in the past.
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