Quote:
Originally Posted by Flaptail
Though it may seem carnage and a blow to the Striped Bass population, in three days these guys could never ever come close to the carnage imposed on bass by the recreational sector of the striped bass fishery along the easterb seaboard.
For example, one only had to sit by the Cape Cod Canal's banks during herring season to see and count all the fish going across Rt. 6 or into trunks and truck bed coolers. Then multiply that by the several thousand miles of Atlantic coastline and millions of fisherman.
Though abhorant, the numbers in this video don't come close.
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It's a 3 day season down there. All of the fish kept have to be tagged. Their quota is a little more than half of Mass' quota. There are commercial pinhookers up here who can put 800 pounds or more in the boat in one day. Multiply that by a full season. The discards left on the beach are troubling, but what about our release mortality up here, rec and comm alike? Some fish eat a broken off loaded pogy that was used to yo-yo. Some obviously survive and grow--others die. What's the percentage either way? How many comms and recs drift live eels, and let the fish run for a 10 count before setting up on it. How many of those fish wind up gut hooked? Fish under 34" will eat an eel, and can't be kept commercially. Some of them die after taking an eel, or another live bait, all the way down. When you're fishing for the dollar, even as a pinhooker, you often don't spend the time to properly release a short fish, as time is money. How many pinhookers cull? It's illegal, but are you all so naive to think that a guy will release a 30 pounder instead of dumping a 35" fish already dead in the box, when the one he just caught is worth twice the money?
It's an ugly method, I'll grant you that. How much cleaner are our hands?
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