John H: <<People keep writing about how the fishery managers are professionals and we should listen to them about the bass population. Look at the job they have done with the other fish stocks. Cod, haddock, whiting, ling, flounder, bluefish, tuna, menhad
den, sea bass, blackfish, eels and most others have been horribly mismanaged. the bass are really the only game in town. I fear that we will lose them too in the future.>>
Amen. I grew up party boat fishing, when cod was king and the disappearing haddock were blamed on Russian factory trawlers. Well, the Russians are gone but the groundfish are too.
Cod landings are now 10th in Massachusetts, behind dogfish, goosefish and others that were once not only commercially unviable but wildly exotic. I go to the commercial pier in Scituate and watch entire boatloads of sand sharks unload. Party boat captai
ns used to club dogfish as a nuisance and throw their corpses back. Now they are the most important commercial fish, and a small news item carried a couple of weeks ago indicates that this stock is collapsing too.
Average weights of swordfish have declined from 160 lbs. to immature 90 pounders that haven't had a chance to breed.
It goes on.
Criminy. It's enough to make a guy an activist.