[Broad Bill]

Captain this post isn't directed at you it's directed at NMFS. When I look at the pictures in your post, every ling with a bloated stomach is probably a female. Ling spawn in the spring and summer, a female ling doesn't reach sexual maturity for 6 years and can drop anywhere from 20 - 60 million eggs. They don't freeze well at all and many of these fish will go to waste in freezers.

For those who didn't live it, NJ and other states had the best ling and whiting fishery which was second to no other fishery in the 60's and 70's until our government played let's make a deal with the Russians. Ground fish stocks, pollack, cod, ling and whiting were wiped out with the aid of domestic small mesh netters. The vast majority of damage was done by enormous international processing trawlers.

It wasn't but a few years ago on this site people were asking what happened to all the ling. We'll both stocks are making a comeback and you'd think we'd learn from our past mistakes. Whiting has recreational creel and size limits between 2-3 fish a day ranging from a minimum of 16" to 18" depending on where your fishing. But small mesh netters still have a sizeable presence to net whiting in our waters. WTF! Same holds true for ling and winter flounder.

If these stocks were protected for 3 - 5 years, they'd recover and the benefits economically and otherwise would be substantial. The Mud Hill would once again become the stopping grounds for bluefins migrating north and south in the spring and summer to and from New England waters just as it was in the 70's and still is off Massachusetts today. Pelagic species would follow suit and party, charter, private bottom fishing boats and commercials would benefit from one of the best fisheries they've ever experienced. But for some reason we don't learn from our mistakes and continue mismanaging these critical stocks and key parts of the ocean's food chain. You just have to ask yourself WTF these people are thinking. Imagine the impact multiple hundreds of millions more juvenile ling and whiting would not only have on those stocks themselves but in attracting sea bass, fluke, cod etc. as added forage in our local waters.

We're simply repeating history and not in a good way while not having learned a thing from mistakes of past. Its frustrating that stocks which rightfully belong to us all are mismanaged by a handful of *******s who make decisions for their own benefit as opposed to the benefit of the fisheries and all anglers, both commercial and recreational, in general.