Wow,
I am a regular on this site and frequent no other site. I missed this one thread, this was probably divine intervention.
I think a lot of what has been said is very healthy debate. Many of those posting have had good valid points. Also, there have been some gross mis-statements of fact made.
Before throwing my 2 cents in, I hope all of you show up this coming Monday & Tuesday nights for the MA DMF hearings that will adress amongst other things...reducing the MA commercial take to 20 fish per day and 10 on opening Day & Sundays. If you can not make it (very few ever show up), send in a letter with your comments. Check out the MA DMF web site for details. Also say hello, it will not be hard to notice me.
My 2 Cents
1...I will not adress, and fisheries managers also find it hard to adress anyone that breaks the regs. A criminal is a criminal. There will always be criminals. That is whether it is the enormous amount of short fish taken by the rec criminal or the illegally sold fish by commercials. Yes, management plans allow for some accounting of these illegally removed fish but how coulld we count them. Bottom line is more enforcement is needed and that will only come with MONEY & Political Will.
Political Will will not come until people show up and scream for more enforcement. I have been at 95% of the SB related hearings over the last 5 years and I can assure you that more independent persons have posted on this thread than have shown up at any one hearing. This does not constitute political will. Money is even harder to get and schools, 9-11 security, etc are rightfully in front of this issue on the State's budget list. A shame, no doubt, but a fact.
2...Protecting forage fish should be by far #1 when it comes to SB issues. Many have used good examples to back this up here. Currently there are two small cast net/Gill net guys harvesting Menhaden for sale at Bait in MA. Not one Pogey boat is left. thank god. numbers are slowly on the increase but are minimal
3...The MA Commercial SB system is set up and intended to be a part time, non-professional commercial fishery. Current DMF leadership & the majority of the members of the MA SB Advisory Panel want it that way.
As soon as displaced Professional commercial fishers enter this fishery looking for the next species to fish for, most will continue unsucessful practices (long term) and blow out their own new buisness. theeir pattern is next to be looking for government funded buyouts, larger quotas, and all the same issues as the last 7 species these professional commercials have overfished and screwed up. Not to mention that this commercial fishery can not support full time commercial efforts from any realistic financial perspective. Giving the professional commercial fishers the exclusive SB Commercial fishery is akin to introducing the drug addict to Methodone Maitenance instead of their Heroin Habit. (Very Very few ever adress their asddication and most go back to Heroin). This group needs to learn to change their Industry, aka Detox.
Another reason to keep the MA SB Commercial fishery non-professional is that it is an entryway for recs into the fishing industry in general. Many like Flap were MA Commercial SB fishers and moved on to other areas of the industry. Many, Many used this fishery while getting their charter Businesses up and running.
4...Stripers forever is a radical organization. Ok, this is America and they have the right to express their opinion. Their participation in the debate has and will shine light on needed issues. However, democracy works better that dictatorships and they will not gain Gamefish status because they do not have enough support. I choose to ignore them most of the time as I have the right to disagree. SF is small and do not represent even 1% of the 700,000 recs that fish MA salt water each year. As soon as you tell a rec that "Gamefish" means no dinner, no support.
5...Though many of us here on these boards would like to think that we represent the average rec, we do not. Most recs are bait dunkin meat fishin casual fishers that want a keeper to take home. Studies are showing that the average rec lands less than 1 keeper per year, not per trip, per year. I used to argue that this was rediculous, but I started to ask everyone that I know who fishes and now, even though I think the data could be better, I agree that not many do land keepers. My point is that many of us can land SB over 36", but many can not.
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