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Originally Posted by Broad Bill
Captain Ron.....I feel your pain and the pain of everyone involved in the travesty called "Fisheries Management". I blame EVERYONE involved in the process from the Department of Commerce, NOAA, NMFA, ASMFC, MAFMC and states which can't get out of their own way. These agencies don't give a shit about stock health anymore, all they care about is the money involved in the exploitation of the resource. Anyone who disagrees would be wrong.
While I agree with Dan about venting sea bass or any fish coming up from the depths that can't be harvested, commercial operators routinely kill 100 times that many fish every trip between sub legal targeted fish, legal targeted fish which have lesser market values back at the docks which get thrown back dead to maximize catch value and incidental by-catch of non targeted species. Does it make that level of waste right, no it doesn't but at the same time it's hypocritical to have different standards for different sectors regarding the same resource. It's no different than what happens to fluke "shorts" every year, thousands pf anglers and party and charter boat captains do their best to release them in the three month season we essentially have only to have them literally slaughtered year round including getting hammered during their offshore migration in the fall when they're spawning by the commercials. EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Every fishery with a commercial presence is literally at risk and will continue being at risk until it's existence is no longer possible.
Dan you said many years ago it won't be long before the oceans bounty will become exclusively "catch shares" driven to the highest bidder, well the sad reality is we're already there.
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Sadly the powers to be don’t realize how much the recreational fishing brings to to the economy .
But they aren’t getting kick backs from us so they don’t care .
But seeing hundreds of hundreds of small sea bass floating every day because guys don’t try doesn’t help the fishery .
Lots guys boast all spring about catching limits while weeding through the shorts . Sadly 10 times as many fish were killed to catch that limit .
Wonder why we have so much fish mortality held against our quota .
With many other fish I think their numbers of release mortality are very over stated .
But with sea bass floating every day , the waste we see is ridiculous.
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