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I lifted this from another fishing board. Just seemed like a good piece for this discussion. Ken, I hope you don't mind.
"Catching a big fish is a wonderful experience for a fisherman.
I like it and always will.
I like to see other people catch big fish.
It is natural.
Angling is perhaps the right word to describe fishing to me at least.
The word sport-fishing carries the energy of business.
Business is business.
I have fished commercially and have sold fish.
I have been a mate, a charter boat captain and a guide. I have made my living doing these things in the past. I have killed many fish for money.
Times have changed at least for me they have.
People are much more aware of the fragility of our oceans and the long reaching effects of our past actions upon its health.
When I was young I did not give much thought to long term consequences of my actions. I am not young anymore and I have become aware of consequences.
The reality is that the ocean is a finite resource.
Everyone takes what they need and their need is subjective. The commercial fisherman has a need and he pursues it.
The sport-fishing industry seeks its own particular needs and those of us who fish for personal reasons seek to satisfy those personal needs.
None of them are more important than any other.
Lots of different needs out there and all of them are heartfelt and important to each of us.
Fishing is a way of life to many people including me.
What is excessive and wasteful to some is normal and wonderful to others.
If the ocean and the stripers in it were infinite in numbers then everyone would be satisfied.
It isn't of course.
I do not know if man can figure out how to Shepard the fishery.
I do not think he can with all the various elements of self interest. I think it is too complex and too political.
The fish are going to suffer and because of that all the various factions are going to lose their subjective prize in the long run.
We like to think that we are wise like Solomon and can regulate and fix and renew and do what we want any time we want because it - feels good - to think that.
It always feels good to ignore what we do not want to see.
I can not see a moral high ground position.
I can see various points of view based on self interest.
Perhaps that is the way it will always be.
Is there a lowest common denominator point of self interest that everyone can agree too?
The regulators want to regulate. It is their whole world.
The commercial faction wants to sell wild fish.
The farmers want fish farms to be the only source for marketed fish.
The sport-fishing groups want to sell adventure trips and trophies.
Everybody wants everything tailor made for their point of view.
Is there a universal answer?
I do not think that everyone will get what they want.
Stripers have a price on their head.
They always will.
Different reasons for that price but a price
none the less.
That is the way it is.
I love to fish.
I always will.
Fishing is fishing.
Politics is Politics.
They are different.
This is a political war and the fish are the the financial resource that is being fought over.
Make no mistake, no one cares about the fish except as a mask - to hide and disguise - their self interest behind.
That self interest may be a pension for a biologist or a government job for a commercial lobbyist or a bigger boat for a charter boat captain or more money for regulating rules for a fish bureaucrat.
It is always the money.
Nature has her ways of settling disputes that are outside of the control of man.
Look what happened to the buffalo and the buffalo hunters.
The same might happen to stripers.
If it does go this way the price on the stripers heads will disappear and with it the self interest of all the various factions and perhaps no one will care about them anymore except those of us who do care about them.
At that point the self interest of those who enjoy simply fishing for stripers wins.
The fish will recover because they will be of no value to anyone except those who love nature.
The pressure will be off.
What is a hundred years to nature?
A non-event in the fullness of natures time.
The stripers will survive and outlast everyones self interest.
Man's lifetime is very short."
-Kenney Abrames
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