Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Gerry:

Thank you for alerting us to this upcoming meeting and providing easy access to submit comments. I submitted my comments using the "form" provided with some other additional information such as ASMFC's own admission that Black Sea Bass stocks are at 219% of the Target for this species. Time to get ASMFC and MAFMC to take the proper common sense action and change their thinking and fisheries management philosophy.

Stephen Machalaba

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Thanks and lots more work to be done here. The good news is
after this last election cycle we have some new people in high places at NOAA that seem to be willing to work with us and take a more common sense approach. These are the same people who overturned the recent regulation changes they tried to put in place on Bluefin Tuna.

There maybe some hope for us after all and thanks for your support.

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Gerry

Thanks for posting.

From my end...(Note: I did not fish much this year due to my Dad)

Seabass in May and June were stacked. Many areas saw some of the best fishing in years which should be a good sign the stock is in good shape.

I forwarded your message to all of my fellow Hi-Mar Striper Club Members.


Joe T.

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

understood,as i've done going back to the early 80's.its like the bird and the glass door for some,me included.as i have said before i love to fish both sweet and salt and have had the great blessings to have done it all over the world.i would and do all i can to be a positive presence towards the fishing community.
however the attitude of our fisheries mgt and local government make me cringe.they dismiss all science,fact and reason.i only speak for myself in this matter and i am saying if they gave us only a few days to do this,what is that really saying.one last thing,when was the last time the rec guys and comm guys worked together for a positive solution for both??

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Would be nice to see more PB and charter captains commenting on this post, just sayin'.

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

I got you Bunker and I feel as fortunate as you and this is why me and you want to give back, as others have before and hopefully others will after you and me.

As far as the deadlines, I'm with you... The meeting agenda just got finalized on Friday 7/25. We knew it was coming but until we had the details on when and where to submit comments, I didn't want to waste peoples time with " coming soon" because with the public, you only have so many chances until they check out. Instead I wanted to use the one bullet we had to lay details out there and make it specific and simple for people to involved and once I had that, I could put it our there.

Had we had more time, I had a much more elaborate plan to get way more support but maybe that's the way they want it....

As far as when in the last time recs and commercials got together, it think it was in the late 90's when we and the NJ Council, including Commercials people worked together and decided to go out of compliance on Fluke. We even had a rally in Point Pleasant to get some attention and it worked!

It worked in large part because of the favorable political conditions in the state at the time agreed since we had the Governor and the DEP in lock step with us and we sort of took a risk given the favorable higher ups in the feds were in place to hopefully support us and the bet paid off...

It might actually come to this again but like or not, certain things would have to happen in this next NJ Governor's s race to try and make this happen again so if we're we're not successful in this current
Federal Fisheries volley, it might come down to this again if the right people are elected here in our state..

To be continued and hope you all hang in there....

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Stupid question since you guys who invest so much time into this……IYO or if you know for a fact, do the powers that be, people that make the regulation decisions, read reports on this site and others like it?

I ask for a reason. Give me a second here to explain the question…..

When my non boating/fishing friends say on a Monday…. “What an awesome weekend, how was fishing/boating?” Meanwhile it was a cloudless sky but blew 30 knots East. They just don’t get it.

So……the guys making the regs and reading all these sites and reading “on the meat” “Limited out” “slaughter” “epic” and whatever other nonsense that’s makes us fisherman look like turds in their eyes. That affect decision making process on regs?

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Is it “affect “ or “effect” ? I stand corrected sensitive people.

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Thanks for your support Joe!

Re: Immediate Action Needed By 7/30 For Seabass
 

Effect or affect their decisions if they read here who knows? :D... The one thing I can say without a doubt, what you submit in public comments is public record and part of the reading notes for the councils before their meetings.

Lots more transparency these days because now they cover these comments and even present them in their slide presentations at these meetings. Kind of like reviews on google and all in the light of day which is very different then it used to be and much harder for them to ignore them and pass the red face test in a public meeting.

Imagine if they had a reviews page on google? Dreaming now but that's how it should be...