[DMac]

I don't post on here a lot anymore, but I can not sit here and not comment at all on this. So we have lived at the 18" rule for 3 season now and last year I really saw the average size of the fish improve and it would continue to improve the longer you left the size limit at a certain size. Now we drop the size a 1/2" which I believe will have little impact on the number of "just short" fluke people will catch. Its about fishing areas that do not get the pressure or knowing how and when and with what to use to bring the bigger fish out to play. Yes dragging spearing ad squid will catch big fluke, but more big fish will be caught when you target them. You can take the biggest fluke sharpie in NJ of his boat/chosen for hire boat take away all his typical tackle and techniques and give him a rental rod and single hook with 40 people on a party boat all with the same bait right next to one another and while he might do better than most. He will not catch the same quality fish he would while fishing on his boat/chosen boat to hire using the skills and techniques he has developed over the years of learning and improving. So because people have worked to become better fisherman and be able to catch fish when others cant we have to suffer with shorter season and lower bag limit. How about the other 90% you talk about stepping up their game a little bit. Ill admit it I have a major addiction problem when it comes to fishing. If the government banned fishing I would rather be in prison or dead than stop. I work to pay for my fishing addiction, and it is my sanity in a F-d up world.

So now we have nothing inshore to fish for but stripers for part of the month of October, great so every boat on the ocean will be targeting one fish that should be great. I know you will come back and say blues and albies, and ling, but honestly albies could be gone depending on weather, and so could the blues. Both seabass and blackfish are closed for a big part of October.

Might even pull my boat earlier this year.

I will end by saying that I understand the desire to give people a better chance at catching keepers, but as soon as areas get picked over for a few weeks you will be throwing back a lot of 17 3/8 inch fish.

Throwing shorts back is a good thing makes me see the stock is health and i always say see you in a few years when I toss them back. Plus I never net a fluke even if I think it might be close to being a short or if I intend on releasing it anyway. I do not buy that throwback die if handled properly. Be kind to the future fish you will be catching no towels, cut the hook off if you have a deeply hooked fish it will rust out, don't put your hand in gills unless your taking picture prior to putting it in the box.

Ok I'm done.

I was so defeated when I heard the news. I didn't attend the meeting because it is over 2 hrs away and I could not take the day off work. I did attend the bft meeting last year and that really did not do anything for us.