Cape cod canal C&R only question

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by PaulS

What % of the fisherman are commercial vs rec? W/o that stat, the chart is meaningless.

What difference does it make if the commercial fishermen numbers are one or a million, they are only killing 10% of the fish.

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by MakoMike

What difference does it make if the commercial fishermen numbers are one or a million, they are only killing 10% of the fish.

The difference is you are blaming the recreational fishermen without taking into account the % of each sector. If recreational fishermen are 99% of fisherman then they should be killing 99% of the fish.

Make it a game fish and a some of the problems are solved. Not all the problems but some of them.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by PaulS

The difference is you are blaming the recreational fishermen without taking into account the % of each sector. If recreational fishermen are 99% of fisherman then they should be killing 99% of the fish.

Make it a game fish and a some of the problems are solved. Not all the problems but some of them.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

It isn't a 1:1 kind of thing. If commercials are 1% of fisherman, they are catching for 1000's of other people. I guess it comes down to whether the fish, as a resource, should only be available to the person who is able/interested in catching it himself.

The spirit of Mako's original post is that some recs are quick to blame the commercial guys for the population problems and the data does not support that.

I think gamefish status reduces the harvest by more than 10%, but it wouldn't end poaching. It would be nearly impossible to police whether a restaurant is serving an illegally harvested or farm raised fish. Better that then what we have now, I suppose.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by zimmy

I think gamefish status reduces the harvest by more than 10%, but it wouldn't end poaching. It would be nearly impossible to police whether a restaurant is serving an illegally harvested or farm raised fish. Better that then what we have now, I suppose.

Look at the chart, for 2017 commercial harvest and dead discards are 10% of the total mortality.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by PaulS

The difference is you are blaming the recreational fishermen without taking into account the % of each sector. If recreational fishermen are 99% of fisherman then they should be killing 99% of the fish.

Make it a game fish and a some of the problems are solved. Not all the problems but some of them.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

O.K. here we go, I'm going to try and dress each of these messages separately.

Making it a gamefish does nothing but eliminate the commercial catch, which is, according to the stock assessment (which is where that chart comes from) is 10%. The fish belong to everyone, not just the guys who pick up a rod and go fishing. The commercial sector catches the fish for the rest of the country that doesn't fish. Fact is that by eliminating the commercial sector you are reducing mortality by 10% while doing nothing to address the other 90%.