People Keeping Fish Negative Posts

[Gerry Zagorski]

First let me say, I'm a proponent of catch and release but it's a personal choice and seems to be a very emotionally charged issue here with people on both sides of it. We should not be judging people's choices or being negative about it on one side or the other.

I'm growing really tired of the negative posts here and I've got way better things to do then baby sitting these sorts of posts. All are welcome here regardless of which side of this you're on, just keep your opinions to yourself...

Just want to forewarn everyone that these sorts of posts will be removed and if you persist, your posting privileges will be revoked.

[Bluefish]

Bravo!!

[Wilson]

This board has become the Trump - PelosI of fishing.
Sponsors and chest beaters are all that is left....with very few exceptions.
While I am not on any social media sites I hear it's worse there.

Ban me if you want, I quit posting long ago.

[bunker dunker]

agreed Gerry,lets fish and talk about fishing.

[RAMMFISH66]

Gerry, agreed!!! This is a fishing site and not for any political agenda..keep up the good work, Rammie

[SPEARFISH]

One of the reasons I don't bother posting here.

[jmurr711]

Originally Posted by Gerry Zagorski

First let me say, I'm a proponent of catch and release but it's a personal choice and seems to be a very emotionally charged issue here with people on both sides of it. We should not be judging people's choices or being negative about it on one side or the other.

I'm growing really tired of the negative posts here and I've got way better things to do then baby sitting these sorts of posts. All are welcome here regardless of which side of this you're on, just keep your opinions to yourself...

Just want to forewarn everyone that these sorts of posts will be removed and if you persist, your posting privileges will be revoked.

you have to catch, to release ahhahahahahahaahahahahhahahahahahahaha

[hammer4reel]

While I understand your point of guys complaining about legally kept fish .

Suppressing those guys from saying WAKE UP AND STOP KILLING EGG LADEN FISH is just as bad .

Killing all these bass just WEEKS away from them dropping eggs is stupid .
And those same guys doing it will be bitching a few years from now there aren’t any bass around .

Leave them spawn , then keep the fish .

.
Hopefully the posts of lots off bass being taken does the same thing here as it recently did in VA.

Close the season to all bass over 36” to allow all the more mature larger fish to continue to increase the fishery .

I can already hear the crying when that happens .

.

[bunker dunker]

again its fisher peeps choice.you have your say and you said it.its like shooting that big buck.would it not be better for the heard to have the mature buck alive and shoot a smaller buck????we must let everyone one decide for themselves
and not make peeps feel bad or uneasy about their choice.

Originally Posted by bunker dunker

again its fisher peeps choice.you have your say and you said it.its like shooting that big buck.would it not be better for the heard to have the mature buck alive and shoot a smaller buck????we must let everyone one decide for themselves
and not make peeps feel bad or uneasy about their choice.

It SHOULD depend on the health of the fishery or in the case of harvesting that trophy buck, the overall health of the herd. My position and to Gerry's point, people are entitled to keep what the regulations allow and contrarian opinions are just that. Is it ethically correct keeping all these 30, 40 and 50 lb. bass, in lieu of what happened to this fishery in the 70's and 80's, my opinion is no having lived through the collapse of the fishery once already. But that's my opinion, probably not shared by most and either way ethics don't dictate catch, regulations do and for that reason I place the responsibility on the shoulders of fisheries management to adopt regulations that ensure the longevity of these fisheries. BUT once again with another valued fishery that collapsed once we haven't learned from our past mistakes and if changes aren't made it'll collapse again.

Look at the two attached slides concerning bass and if you believe they're directionally correct, it spells tough times ahead for the striped bass stock, in spite of the oceans of fish people are currently posting about. The size of the biomass is a current indicator. The more relevant measure is recruitment, a leading indicator of things to come. Look at the second chart, over 300 million eggs in '04 down to a recent low of approximately 60 million in '13 and then compare that to the catch trend. An 80% decrease in recruitment in any fishery spells trouble and while environmental issues might be contributing, I'd stake my money on the relentless harvest of breeder bass (pre and post spawn) the regulations have allowed for years. Protect the breeders, protect the spawn and you have a sustainable fishery. But just like summer flounder, we harvest the breeders and harvest during the spawn and the results speak for themselves. The regulations in place are not a working formula in any fishery, it's common sense. If NJF&G didn't stock trout for opening day, how many trout do you think would be caught opening day. Same concept, only difference is stocking versus natural reproduction.

If we managed fisheries based on ethics and anglers consciences, we wouldn't need fishery management and there also wouldn't be too many viable fisheries left. I don't blame anglers for keeping what is legally allowed, BUT we're absolutely contributing to this stocks decline since the majority of catch in the case of striped bass is recreational.

BD if the population is healthy, nothing wrong harvesting that trophy buck.