I must say first that I am gald to see this much arguing and bantering over such
an obviously sensitive issue as our beloved striped bass fishery. The fact that
people care and are willing to take the time to constructively argue their opinions
is probably half the battle right there. I think there have been valid points in, many of the postings,
and for what it's worth, here are my two cents:
I am by no means an old timer, but I've been fishing for a long time--at least twenty years.
I remember my dad bring home bass as long as me when i was a kid in the early to mid seventies,
and I couldn't wait to graduate from snapper blues in the local estuary to big ol' bass when I got older.
Funny thing happened though, by the time I got big enough to handle a big surf or trolling rod, big bass became the exception
rather than the rule. So I grew up in some of the most choice bluefishing years imangineable.
Only a decade later and things have really taken a turn again. I fish predominantly on the South Shore, the Cape, some times
the North Shore, and Maine a couple times a year.
LAst season I must have put close to a hundered days on the water, even if only for an hour at a time.
My personal experience has been this: the 36" one fish limit was beautiful thing. That along with reduced commercial sales
and farm raised bass turned a species on the brink of disaster around. My personal experience since dropping to 34" and then 28" is that there are
definately less BIG fish around. I don't think it was a coincidence that as we dropped sizes in MA, all of my biggest fish started coming out of ME.
We all know there are tons of medium sized fish around. I don't think increasing the bag limit to two fish is going to solve anything.
Who needs to keep two fish that bad? Let's face it, we are not feeding our starving children who would
otherwise go without.
I'm a big trout bum too, and i've fished a lot of great streams out west that employ
a slot limit. I've seen it work. I don't know if the Atlantic dynamics are receptable to the same chance for
success--I think it's worth a shot. How did ME do with it? Whoever said Phil Coates laughed at them shouldn't feel too bad.
Who ever said we should have a commercial bag limit was also right on the money.
I talked to lots of rod and reel commercial bass fishermen last year, and I met few
and far between who were actually paying for gas, little alone boat slips, on their sales.
Who ever said you can argue numbers any way you want has a valid point. I've been to NEFMC
meetings, met with NMFS biologists, and played around with legal briefs arguing
TAC's and targeted biomass--you can manipulate any given year's numbers to get
whatever result-oriented opinion you want. (current blue fin tuna arguments case in point)
The trends tell the tales though.
The bottom line is we need to take less fish (big, small, or slot sized). How many different ways do you need to say it?
Charter boats will not go out of business if patrons can only take one fish per person, and supply
and demand economics should buttress commercial sales--if pounds go down, price goes up.
It's time we start internalizing the true cost of over-fishing (I see $20 a lb. swordfish in the near future).
As for bass, I'm happy to eat the farm raised. I keep one fish a season now, as a personal choice. I don't
preach that for regulation, I'm just trying to do my part because I'd rather catch and release a lot of fish
than only catch one or two. I put my money where my mouth is because I'd like to still be doing this
50 years from now. I've worked in the comercial fishing industry a little, from the legal side. It's
a sad state of affairs. No more fish, guys going out of work--if there was an easy answer we wouldn't be on this
forum. The truth of the matter is that the ocean is a finite resource. We can have reasonable regulations and still look forward
toward preservation. So go to meetings, vote, get a law degree, legislate, or just dial in to reel-time,
but by all means FISH. Fish and enjoy it, fish because you love it, just fish responsibly. If we stick toether,
we'll see this through. See you on the water...