Quote:
Originally Posted by Joey Dah Fish
It's a terrible shame the with all the money given to the government agencies they still get this stuff wrong!!! The only so called success story they have is the return of the striper. Now they are treating that. The commercial ban in our area on stripers certainly has increased the population until this past year fishing had been great. Perhaps commercial bans on other species and increased habitat would do the job. In fact I'm sure of it. I don't want to put the commercial guys out f business but you know you have to call a spade a spade. They are certainly killing a lot more fish other than their targeted species and destroying habitat the holds fish when they bang the hell out of the bottom. If something isn't done properly , both the rec anglers and the commercial guys will have no fish to catch. I don't have any answers except for doing my part and C&R when it's possible. Good luck to all and practice conservation when possible. I just love to fish. I spent a few years over seas on the Island of Crete when I was in the USAF and I have seen the effect of over fishing first hand. The beautiful waters of the med were pretty much void of fish  |
I dont have answers either but we should b able to see what works...Besides Stripers... Seabass n fluke are perfect examples of success. These are now nowhere near close to over fishing or anytype of collaspe. Both very healthy stocks up and down the coast. Why??? Bc we went along with strick regs to ensure it would b that way for the future. And the end of the day we are penalized for it. The result is where we are now bc they don't know what to do with a healthy stock.
Remember when every tiny pin seabass was a keeper.... remember when every person could fill a blue barrel of legal small blackfish from the canal. Remember when u stopped keeping fluke when u had a full cooler.
Bc these pratices are not common any more those fisheris have improved And it pretty clear for most to see.
I am the first to want to see the big bass around for for the future... If u force the for hire and recreational sector to fish for only stripers bc nothing else is available that will b one of the big down falls even if it was one fish.
At some point it works backwards...Now that we have loads of seabass around we will get cut. After years of cuts to get it where it is today
After all the years of cuts with fluke...Now the average guy just throw back gut hooked shorts all day long watching a dinner get feed to the crabs. And we put all the pressure on the bigger fish.
More winter flounder in the ocean every year - two fish - bc there wasn't as many where they were 20 years ago
Do we need to do something to protect stripers off course we do...bit If we didn't get the bunker we wouldnt get those big bass parked off central jersey for a month + u would get a quick shot jigging... they would trickle... or they would stay offshore/ Or go wherever there is bunker. The first thing everyone would say is its collapsed even if they were caught in record #s somewhere else. Happens every fall... sand eels inshore the bass park there n eat em. No sand eels they stay off shore ( loads seen there ) eat butter fish and everyone will say fall bass run was no good bc it collapsed overfishing. Bc u say fishing was great up until this year...although u make think it means nothing if guys from Barnegat or ny say it was the best season ever
Sad but true that the last paragraph above gets many people to belive things that r simply not true a form of ignorance bc it's supposed to a certain way in their mind.
It's the biggure picture that all regulations and season effect one another and fisheries are always changing.
Everyone is quick to blame a commercial guy and what's there size limits quotas etc...ex with fluke. Everyone complains about commercial size limit for fluke...They should have no size limit... bc they get there quota either way. I would much rather see them keep the first 400 lbs of fluke they net rather then discard 800 lbs to get there 400 of one size. What they catch is documented very well unlike the bs Disney land make believe #s we catch rod n reel.
