Thanks, thought the show went well. Wish Bill Shillingford (Advisory Panel) Member was able to attend, great guy and wealth of knowledge.

I know what you mean by posts versus a verbal communication. It's hard sometimes as long winded as I am to say everything that has to be said and have people understand it.

Here's probably the shortest way I can say what's happened to this fishery. Due to recreational size minimum increases causing substantial quota cuts, we transitioned from harvesting 1-2 yr. age class fish, a high percentage sexually immature and proportion more males to harvesting all sexually mature fish with an extremely high percentage females. The result, we're destroying the spawning stock, the large female breeder population which produces up to ten times more eggs than juvenile females, killed recruitment and the population in seven short years declined by an amazing 70,000,000 plus fish. With the same regulations and ridiculous size minimums being used to manage this fishery, the stock will not only decline, it'll decline at an accelerated pace and since the population of older age groups are declining in the stock, discard mortality rates will increase beyond the insane levels they're already at today.

Unless size minimums are addressed and the spawn is protected, this fishery will fail, both the recreational and commercial sectors will incur severe socio-economic consequences, small businesses will be hurt, tackle shops, processing plants, commercial owners and crews, party boats, for hire operators and shore based economies tied to this fishery will all incur more economic impacts than they have already.

Everyone in fisheries management, this is on your watch. All state representatives when you vote next week, if you vote for preferred measures and continue the harvest of older age classes, you'll be driving another nail in this fisheries coffin and causing continued economic consequences to the states you represent. US Senators, Secretary of Commerce and NOAA officials will all know the data you should be basing your decisions on is in fact being ignored.

Successful regulations were replaced by regulations literally risking the future of the stock. Someone needs to explain to the constituents of this fishery why and how that happened. Both sectors have waited long enough and made enough sacrifices for the results being delivered. We're about ten years beyond the time when size minimums should have been reduced back to the 90's levels, yet management is honestly considering the same regulations for next year which caused absolute carnage to the stock over this past decade. Incredible!