Stripers Forever

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by Saltheart

I hear this all the time from the commercial fisherman. Providing fish to 99% of the population. this sounds like a public service but in fact , in return for so much money per pound , commercial fisherman, ditributors and even the markets form a supply chain. Its fish for money. Now do you really think someone who goes to the market and buys the fish for $10 a pound is more "entitled" to the fish than a guy who gets up at 4am and goes down and catches the fish?

To "supply the masses" of consumers , commercial fishing should be commecial fish farming. Just like chicken and beef , the fish should be farmed. To think that a commercial guy is entitled to a bigger share of the pie because he sells his fish and it gets distributed is a good way of taking away the focus that an individual commercial fisherman gets more than his share (his share not the consumer market share) of the fish.

Anyway , I am not anti com fishing but lets not play games that they are doing a public service providing fish to the population. Its a business and they take fish and sell it for money.

Do you labor for nothing? Do you give your stuff away? Why should fishermen who commercially fish do so for nothing? And remember the millions of dollars spent every year on striped bass management are supplied by the general public. How long do you think that will continue (especially in this economy) if the general public has no access to the fish?

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by MakoMike

Do you labor for nothing? Do you give your stuff away? Why should fishermen who commercially fish do so for nothing? And remember the millions of dollars spent every year on striped bass management are supplied by the general public. How long do you think that will continue (especially in this economy) if the general public has no access to the fish?

I think his point was that some people boast about the "public service" the commercial sector does by providing table fare to those that enjoy striped bass but do not fish, while minimizing how much they mention that they get paid for it.

I don't think any reasonable person would expect commercial fishermen to work for nothing. At the same time, they're doing no more of a public service than the gas station attendant who puts gas in your tank for money or the dentist who cleans your teeth for in exchange for a check.