Piracy and rule breaking is the only choice recreational guys have anymore to justify the sport. If you believe law enforcement will step up their efforts than why do you suggest they currently turn a blind eye to the bucket brigade on every jetty along the coast to guys that keep every short fluke, striper or blackfish with no oversight whatsoever.
Years ago there were
NO restrictions on fluke,
NO size or creel limits. Pretty sure that was the case in the 70's. Don't remember what year they imposed limits but when they did I believe the fluke limits were 12 inches and 10 fish! There obviously were less recreational boats fishing back in the day but there were probably more party boats, and every one was railed on weekends. With the higher creel limits or no creel limits, I'd bet there were more fish taken by less anglers when it came to winter and summer flounder. Fish were abundant
EVERY year.
What changed? There was never the commercial fleet we have today. The average person could actually afford fish at the market. It wasn't !$@~*% $50 a pound for a fillet! There was A&P, Acme and Shop Rite that had fish markets with very reasonable prices. Now you have Kings, Whole Foods and all these specialty retail stores that charge absolutely insane prices for fish we release every day! The commercial fleet has exploded and our resource has imploded and to add insult to injury proportionately recreational guys have a more stringent set of rules to operate under than the guys causing the problem. Anyone not seeing that has their head up their ass. And how much illegal catch do you think hits the docks every day, that number has to be
ENORMOUS.
Case in point, what lead to the collapse of the striper fishery in the 70's / 80's. They were decimated by commercial netters along the coast in particular in Virginia and North Carolina. States whose economy in part depended on the ocean wiped them out with indiscriminate netting. Fish of all sizes were taken, breeders and shorts as the body of fish migrated along the coast. I have to find the video from either Virginia or North Carolina I believe years ago with a pick up truck hauling a purse seine along the beach and dragging thousands of bass on shore. You'll throw up watching this video. Open up bass fishing to commercial again and see how long the fishery takes to collapse, less than a few years would be my guess. What destroyed the weakfish population, purse seiners along the coast and netters in Delaware Bay. What killed the whiting and ling fishery in the 80's and 90's, small mesh netters which killed and culled everything. A fishery I thought would never be effected by commercial pressure black fish. That was until they figured out a technique to trawl over rocks (roller trawling) and the Asian restaurant market put a premium price on live black fish. Try navigating the western edge of the Mud Hole at certain times of year, there's so many fish pot markers it's like running an obstacle course. Any fishery with a sustainable market is being exploited and the resource is being taken away from the recreational angler.
Recreational anglers unfortunately have no strong organized lobbyists to push through legislation representing our interests. Plain and simple. We're the classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Every year in recent memory we bitch and moan about regulations and every year we get a smaller piece of the pie. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We've been in this cycle for 30 years. From no daily limits and no creel sizes to possibly two fish at 19 inches while 14 inch fish are being sold at market for $16.99 a pound.
We're not in the process of losing our sport, we've lost it to ^&%$#$% politicians who are lining their own pockets and a powerful retail industry with lobbying clout we can only hope for. How much tonnage of flounder and fluke go to market every year. That number has to be staggering and these are the fish we're being asked to throw back. Flounder fishing has for all practical purposes been closed now for what 7-9 years. Where is the rebound in that stock. It's at Kings, Whole Food and all the new up and coming yuppy retail stores who are making millions of dollars on a resource taken from us.
So Captain Allen, do I advocate piracy and ignoring regulations no I don't. I've adhered to them like most of us for all these years.
BUT our sport and your livelihood is being taken away and personally as I've said before until the regulations address both the real cause of the problem and more so govern everyone equally I'm going with self regulation. As others have suggested on this site, the bigger picture is this is all headed towards pay per catch legislation and salt water licenses. The ocean's resources don't belong to Washington, Albany or Trenton and while I believe there needs to be management and oversight, until it's managed with everyone's interest considered I won't recognize it. Developing a plan that addresses the real problem and provides hope for the future would be a good start. It's the equivalent of a company that isn't doing well and has one lay off after another. They address the problem by cutting cost and firing long term employees. Too many times they don't address what's causing the problem on the revenue line. Formula for a slow death. Recreational anglers are unfortunately the long term employee! We're in a slow death spiral and if you follow the trend line how long does everyone think 2 or 3 fish at 19 or 20 inches will last before morphing into, the same as winter flounder did, a moratorium on the fishery. If you think that's not possible my guess would be it's right around the corner!
Check out the below link and tell me if it doesn't identify the cause of the problem. And keep in mind these are
JUST reported results, wouldn't be surprised between discard at sea and black market the numbers are double what's reported. And yet the powers to be continue penalizing recreational anglers for their exploitation of a public resource!
http://www.fishingnj.org/netusa3.htm
