In order to help preserve the resource I have taken it upon myself over the last few years to not catch anything much over 30# , no matter how much I try.
I killed four stripers this year - all for the table. I released somewhere near 5-600. I fish 3-4 days per week from April to November on Cape Cod and often go south when the fish leave here, so I fish a lot.
As for your questions:
1. I have no way of knowing why another angler keeps a fish. So long as it is taken legally and disposed of legally, I don't think its' any of my business
2. I suppose some do but, as long as they take and dispose of them legally, I don't think it's any of my business.
3. I suppose some folks can but I don't. I'd rather keep a small fish but, sometimes have to keep a large one if it's injured.
When I started fishing, it was to fill the freezer. We'd codfish in March and April from shore. Do stripers when they came. And the annual Quincy Bay trip finished it off. Today I still enjoy the security of having a few fillets in the freezer, but it's not like it was; PACKED! I keep the smallish keepers and send the cows home. I owe them that. And they are the future of the fishery. Keeping the legal limit of keepers is ok, but I have this debt to the species. They got me through, and I'll see them through. Good thread, this one...
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
, no matter how much I try.
Hybrid Mode
