i remember ......

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by Gobigblue

The Problem is, was your mindset of Catching hundreds of fish was termed a "Successful Day". How many of those fish went to waste and ended up in a landfill? Fisherman got us into this mess by having their own way with the Ocean!! There is a saying all good things come to an end and You reap what you sow... Now you want to blame others, look in the mirror my friend

Your comment raises two points. Keeping the number of fish that were being kept is just crazy and should have never been allowed to happen. With that said, even with those numbers being taken, the fisheries with less commercial pressure flourished every year with no apparent end in sight. When the fluke fishery in the late eighties collapsed due to commercial overharvest, they set their sights on winter flounder or black backs year round and that fabulous fishery was destroyed in a few short years. Cod, pollack, whiting and ling or ground fish in general followed suit for the same reasons and it wasn't related to recreational harvest. Remember an important point, recreational anglers for the most part have access to fisheries a few months out of the year, commercials pound them year round and these stocks can't take that pressure and the waste associated with commercial netting is a huge part of the problem. They kill everything. The finger in this case is pointed exactly were it should be.

To Bullet Bob's point in his post, the world is significantly more populated which has created a high demand for fish and seafood. That demand isn't being met by the recreational sector. It's a big business as I've said and the commercial sector and the bodies managing it are making billions of dollars a year exploiting a resource that in years past was never exploited the way it is today.