FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
What an absolute joke the fisheries service is!

What actual service are they performing and for whom? Certainly not the benefit of the fisherman.

Once again here we are tied to the dock because of poor management. Who actually thought closing the Fluke season on the 25th with basically nothing to fish for till Oct. 1 was a good idea? Why couldn't Sea bass have opened up when fluke closed? at least give us a chance instead of being tied to the dock! Would 5 days have destroyed the species?

We had a charter yesterday, had to toss back over 300 Sea Bass, many floated away, many got eaten by the birds, customers got to eat none. How the hell is that fair or right.

I hear talk of better Sea Bass regulations coming... are they going to open it May 1st instead of the middle of the month? Still going to leave it at One fish for the summer, close it for another month then open it a week after fluke closes?

You can imagine why many of us have had it, it's not only Sea Bass, it's every dam species out there.

Don't tell me we could go blue fishing, that's bullshit. The boats blue fishing are carrying not many customers either and been doing it all summer. Fish for 1 keeper blackfish? Catch & release at $90, I don't think so.

The lost days that turn into weeks by the end of the summer never get returned or taken into consideration, another joke.

Here it is a gorgeous Sunday the end of September and only 2 customers showed up today, there were enough for 1 boat out of 5 to make it out in the Harbor.

With the Official Sea Bass opening on Wednesday and crap weather coming again this week, maybe Friday we will be able to make it out. Sad what this once flourishing industry has come to. I know exactly how the mom & pop shops, hardware stores and any other small business feel, we are all in the same dam boat with-out any paddles.

Capt. Ron

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

Captain Ron, I completely agree...I feel the only way to fix it is to shit can ALL the members of ALL the fisheries, both national and international, start over with equal number of rec and comm members. Pipe dreams, I know...
Don't say it; at my age, I'm not driving 1 3/4 to 2hr., one way, for the chance to catch 1 sea bass or 3 fluke.
My thoughts may be flawed but they are what they are.
Why include the internationals? If you think their issues are fairly addressed, you're living in "never-never land". There's more illegal fishing and mismanagement worldwide than ever comes to light. Prove it? No, you go look it up. I'm done...

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

Captain Ron, don’t give up. Fight, fight, fight. This is not just about Fish. There’s a lot of interests that think that teaching your kids how to Fish and prepare it for the table is not promoting the world that they want. They want our kids staring at The screen all day eating out of a box and getting fat, dumb, and happy.

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

IMO the only reason sea bass float away is your not taking the time to vent them .all boats fishing for them should be required to vent them so they don’t go to waste . No different than when you throw hundreds of sub legal fish back every day during the spring season . If you don’t want to vent them dont fish for them

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

Sorry Dan but I don't believe that for one minute, popping the air bladder may help them go back down and out of sight but there's no way that could be good. Pop a human bladder and see what happens.

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

Captain Ron.....I feel your pain and the pain of everyone involved in the travesty called "Fisheries Management". I blame EVERYONE involved in the process from the Department of Commerce, NOAA, NMFA, ASMFC, MAFMC and states which can't get out of their own way. These agencies don't give a shit about stock health anymore, all they care about is the money involved in the exploitation of the resource. Anyone who disagrees would be wrong.

While I agree with Dan about venting sea bass or any fish coming up from the depths that can't be harvested, commercial operators routinely kill 100 times that many fish every trip between sub legal targeted fish, legal targeted fish which have lesser market values back at the docks which get thrown back dead to maximize catch value and incidental by-catch of non targeted species. Does it make that level of waste right, no it doesn't but at the same time it's hypocritical to have different standards for different sectors regarding the same resource. It's no different than what happens to fluke "shorts" every year, thousands pf anglers and party and charter boat captains do their best to release them in the three month season we essentially have only to have them literally slaughtered year round including getting hammered during their offshore migration in the fall when they're spawning by the commercials. EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Every fishery with a commercial presence is literally at risk and will continue being at risk until it's existence is no longer possible.

Dan you said many years ago it won't be long before the oceans bounty will become exclusively "catch shares" driven to the highest bidder, well the sad reality is we're already there.

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

You don’t have to pop the swim bladder , though many say you do
You vent with a hollow needle barley under the skin . You will hear the gas release by just barely nicking it . . Punching too deep enough to vent the swim bladder many times causes more harm than good , and could easily miss it damaging other organs .

It’s used for many types of baratrauma fisheries to allow fish to easily go back down .
It takes less than a second to do .
Many states require it .
Nj did quite a bit of testing and tagging sea bass and proved it works very well .
We do it right next to you all spring and don’t have a ton of floaters .

Really care about the fisheries we still have you honestly should learn how to fo it .

Is it a little extra time , absolutely.
But it’s better than giving the fish a 5 % chance watching them float away

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

Sadly the powers to be don’t realize how much the recreational fishing brings to to the economy .
But they aren’t getting kick backs from us so they don’t care .
But seeing hundreds of hundreds of small sea bass floating every day because guys don’t try doesn’t help the fishery .
Lots guys boast all spring about catching limits while weeding through the shorts . Sadly 10 times as many fish were killed to catch that limit .
Wonder why we have so much fish mortality held against our quota .
With many other fish I think their numbers of release mortality are very over stated .
But with sea bass floating every day , the waste we see is ridiculous.

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Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

He's running a head boat.. I can imagine trying to vent fish for 30 guys using triple hook bottom rigs.. He'd need to hire 3 extra mates just to vent sea bass...

Re: FISHERMEN/FISHERIES MISMANAGMENT
 

So instead kill a few thousand fish a month per boat then cry there is nothing to fish for .
Venting doesn’t take much more time than dehooking does .

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