Quote:
Originally Posted by Duffman
This right here it was I'm talking about. Capt. Dan and countless other great fisherman are crushing it while regular rec guys are struggling.
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Fish are here but in tight patches. Find those patches and fish are chewing hard. Great fisherman are crushing it, regular recs are struggling! I agree with Dan but isn't that the red flag? Are party and charter boats crushing it? Just read the reports. If you were fishing in the late eighties you've been fishing long enough to remember what this fishery was like when we had 8 fish bag limits, the entire season was productive and not just the last month and September was off the charts great for two to three weeks every year. Compare that to today's fishery. It's a shadow of what it used to be and quite frankly it's only going to get worse if regulations aren't drastically changed.
This is September. The month for years fish schooled up over wide areas with more fish pouring out of the bays everyday. Best fishing month of the year bar none. Now it's sharpies who can find and work small patches in the hope of landing 3 keepers! What does that say about where this fishery is at?
I know I'm considered a wet blanket here. But I went further with NMFS, ASMFC and MAFMC trying to draw attention to these problems more than anyone else ever has. And with
zero support from ASA or any of the more well known recreational fishing organizations. The only person who helped educating and guiding me concerning the process was Dave Daly (Dales529). I post what I do because we're losing this fishery just as many others have been lost. This one because of it's importance will more than sting. The consequences will reverberate throughout the recreational and commercial sectors and shore communities and small businesses will take it on the chin. Imagine a summer without fluke fishing, it can happen no different than a spring without winter flounder and the consequences that caused shore communities and small businesses let alone the recreational sector.
This'll be my final comment on the subject. You can't win if you don't fight and the recreational sector has become so accustomed to losing it's become our mantra. Fishery is in trouble and year in year out management does nothing and all we do is sit around talking about having the highest size minimums and most extended seasons, neither of which will help the sector or health of the stock. It'll actually hurt both.
