Why is The Striped Bass Conservation Bill so hush hush?

[leptar]

Originally Posted by JohnnyD

No kidding. What the hell is the matter with people trying to conserve a decreasing fish population?

It's not about conservation here any more.. you want to conserve the fish then make it NO-TAKE. <PERIOD>

the only thing this amendment will do is guarantee the slaughter of this species.

Think about it for a minute.. how many throwbacks have you thrown back that went belly up? I can't even tell you a number of fish i have caught in the 34-38" range that inhaled plugs, eels into the gut/gills...

So now when this passes and i catch a 38" bass that inhaled a needlefish or what ever and it is guaranteed dead i must now throw it back. All day long you can slaughter 22-24" fish on sandworm/sea clam... now it's legal...

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by leptar

It's not about conservation here any more.. you want to conserve the fish then make it NO-TAKE. <PERIOD>

the only thing this amendment will do is guarantee the slaughter of this species.

Think about it for a minute.. how many throwbacks have you thrown back that went belly up? I can't even tell you a number of fish i have caught in the 34-38" range that inhaled plugs, eels into the gut/gills...

So now when this passes and i catch a 38" bass that inhaled a needlefish or what ever and it is guaranteed dead i must now throw it back. All day long you can slaughter 22-24" fish on sandworm/sea clam... now it's legal...

Son-of-A..... That's what I get for being on S-B.com while working.

I skimmed through and read the bill basically as 1 fish 26-40". Taking into consideration that females don't reach sexual maturity until they're between age 4-8, fish taken towards the latter part of that age range probably haven't bred yet.

I'd be curious what kind of "scientific research" is backing regulations like this. Or do they think that taking the commercial guys out of the picture in just one state of the 8-10 states you can find Stripers, they'll solve all the problems the stock faces?

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by leptar

It's not about conservation here any more.. you want to conserve the fish then make it NO-TAKE. <PERIOD>

the only thing this amendment will do is guarantee the slaughter of this species.

So now when this passes and i catch a 38" bass that inhaled a needlefish or what ever and it is guaranteed dead i must now throw it back. All day long you can slaughter 22-24" fish on sandworm/sea clam... now it's legal...

I am pretty sure 1 fish at this slot would be better for the health of the population than current regs, all other factors aside. Also, at this point if you catch a 27" fish that inhaled a needlefish and is dead you would need to throw it back. I would guess there isn;t any solid data on it, but coastwide there are probably more 27" fish caught and fatally injured than 38" fish.

I am not saying this bill is the answer, trying to be objective about what I think the reasoning behind it might be.

Also, no take would not necessarily be the best for conservation if there wasn't no take of all forage fish. If the population is too big it collapses. The population needs to be balanced to be healthy