Mass. weighs tougher protections for striped bass

[Jackbass]

Cowman you are 100 percent correct no one has any iota of a clue what the Rec take is at this point in time. The Rec Catch that is reported is total catch including fish that are released to fight another day.

The new regs will only allow one fish to be taken per day. Which will further limit the recreational catch.

The MA comm season is in no way tightly regulated. The catch is under reported there is always fish being sold under the radar. Why is it that a large portion of commercial tags go unfilled every year? Do these people not use their license? The Registration is a joke.

[intrepid24]

Originally Posted by Jackbass

Cowman you are 100 percent correct no one has any iota of a clue what the Rec take is at this point in time. The Rec Catch that is reported is total catch including fish that are released to fight another day.

The new regs will only allow one fish to be taken per day. Which will further limit the recreational catch.

The MA comm season is in no way tightly regulated. The catch is under reported there is always fish being sold under the radar. Why is it that a large portion of commercial tags go unfilled every year? Do these people not use their license? The Registration is a joke.

I want to know why people equate com fishing w/ fish sold under the radar.....I AM SICK OF THAT %$%$%$%$ TALK !! LETS TALK ABOUT CHARTER GUYS SELLING THEIR CATCH OUT OF STATE, DAY AFTER DAY.

[CowHunter]

Nobody ever asked me for a catch report in Mass or NJ, nor ANYBODY else I know. The Rec catch is MUCH Higher. You know the Comm catch probably within 10% = / -. Mass is 10 Percent of comm catch coast wide. Stick with stripersforever, let em take away the com catch and give it to VA / MD / NC, no pin hookin there boys, gill netting or haul siegning much more fun. Nobody gives a rats ass about the comm guy in LI thats been breaking every law and making his own comm catch! Beat every case, give the quata to him.Either way, they shut mass down dont make a difference. My clients want dead fish! Im gonn kill the same 25-30k lbs or so Every season up and down the coast from April to January. Get range rover driving shmucks to make the rules, I know, change it to 20 inch cause then they can catch too with rhir fly rods. Regs stay the way they are they will never catch... Next Tuna4ever, Tog4ever, Fluke4ever, make em' all gamefish! Ban all commercial! Bunch of clowns writing 100 letters that spend 2 days on the water a season, inherited dadys money and have nothging better to do! Dont know what it is to work 4 a living, go pay 1K for an orvis guy to put em on fish!

[CowHunter]

Intrepid24, Well You should know by now, Everything is blamed on commercials!!!

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by CowHunter

Intrepid24, Well You should know by now, Everything is blamed on commercials!!!

It's unfortunate, but many people stop caring about their long-term impact when money is motivating them. See: the financial meltdown, most politicians, Enron, etc.

[Back Beach]

[QUOTE=CowHunter;728380 Well You should know by now, Everything is blamed on commercials!!![/QUOTE]

That's not true. Anyone who is even remotely informed knows this isn't the case. Even with the abuses of the Mass commercial fishery it doesn't take a big stretch to realize the rec harvest is way out of control.

My biggest problem with the Mass commercial is we allow out of staters to get licenses and take our allocation... ice fishing and other illegal/shady practices abound too. Just due to the fact there's a place to sell or transport 30 fish at a time invites all this stuff. The taking of 1 million pounds of fish is a much lesser problem to me as its a small number of the total fish harvested coastwide.

If we implement a one fish per day rec season along with a daily limit of,say, six fish daily for charter operations, it will go a long way. Make the recs fish under the slot limit and the commercial will take care of itself. People will still abuse the commercial regardless, but its the recs we need to cut back.
In addition, we can still nuke New Jersey if its warranted...

[Doublerunner]

Originally Posted by CowHunter

Nobody ever asked me for a catch report in Mass or NJ, nor ANYBODY else I know. The Rec catch is MUCH Higher. You know the Comm catch probably within 10% = / -. Mass is 10 Percent of comm catch coast wide. Stick with stripersforever, let em take away the com catch and give it to VA / MD / NC, no pin hookin there boys, gill netting or haul siegning much more fun. Nobody gives a rats ass about the comm guy in LI thats been breaking every law and making his own comm catch! Beat every case, give the quata to him.Either way, they shut mass down dont make a difference. My clients want dead fish! Im gonn kill the same 25-30k lbs or so Every season up and down the coast from April to January. Get range rover driving shmucks to make the rules, I know, change it to 20 inch cause then they can catch too with rhir fly rods. Regs stay the way they are they will never catch... Next Tuna4ever, Tog4ever, Fluke4ever, make em' all gamefish! Ban all commercial! Bunch of clowns writing 100 letters that spend 2 days on the water a season, inherited dadys money and have nothging better to do! Dont know what it is to work 4 a living, go pay 1K for an orvis guy to put em on fish!

I take offense to your post. I bust my hump every day of my life. I own my own business and go in day after day after day even when I don't feel well. And I do not sit behind a desk and I have no inheritance. And I have not paid any one to put me on to fish. I surf fish at times when most are sleeping. I put in my time and don't expect any one to hand anything to me. And by the way my chevy pick up has 190,000 miles on it and is my only vehicle

Your argument basically states that since other states can still have commercial fishing and that other comm's break the law then it's okay for everyone to do that. Come on man, at least be responsible.

Rec's may catch more fish but they kill far fewer. I dare say that 100% of the fish caught commercially are killed. Recreational fishermen kill very few of their catch....maybe 10% nationwide. For me it's 0% as I release them all....but that's just me. Plus rec's provide much more $$ for the economy than do comm's.

Personally I don't want to see any one's livelihood taken away but I feel saving the stock is more important than a few dollars. And don't call me a treehugger 'cause I am not. But without steps being taken to save the species it will be lost and then nothing will be left for anybody and the comm's will just move on to another species for their clients.

And again, I re-iterate that this is just one step in the right direction. The other is to stop the dragging for menhaden

[maddmatt]

Originally Posted by Doublerunner

I take offense to your post. I bust my hump every day of my life. I own my own business and go in day after day after day even when I don't feel well. And I do not sit behind a desk and I have no inheritance. And I have not paid any one to put me on to fish. I surf fish at times when most are sleeping. I put in my time and don't expect any one to hand anything to me. And by the way my chevy pick up has 190,000 miles on it and is my only vehicle

Your argument basically states that since other states can still have commercial fishing and that other comm's break the law then it's okay for everyone to do that. Come on man, at least be responsible.

Rec's may catch more fish but they kill far fewer. I dare say that 100% of the fish caught commercially are killed. Recreational fishermen kill very few of their catch....maybe 10% nationwide. For me it's 0% as I release them all....but that's just me. Plus rec's provide much more $$ for the economy than do comm's.

Personally I don't want to see any one's livelihood taken away but I feel saving the stock is more important than a few dollars. And don't call me a treehugger 'cause I am not. But without steps being taken to save the species it will be lost and then nothing will be left for anybody and the comm's will just move on to another species for their clients.

And again, I re-iterate that this is just one step in the right direction. The other is to stop the dragging for menhaden

double runner

just because u release all your fish doesn't mean they all live. the mortality rate is about 8-10% for released fish.

also

if u add up all the lbs of fish caught and killed on the million plus trips recs make in mass each year + the 8 - 10 % mortality on released fish u'd come up with a far more dead lbs of fish than the 1 million lbs the comms take.

so

if u really wanted to protect the most fish u'd ban the recs and catch and release and just let the comm's fish. think of all the carbon savings too!

[Doublerunner]

Originally Posted by maddmatt

double runner

just because u release all your fish doesn't mean they all live. the mortality rate is about 8-10% for released fish.

also

if u add up all the lbs of fish caught and killed on the million plus trips recs make in mass each year + the 8 - 10 % mortality on released fish u'd come up with a far more dead lbs of fish than the 1 million lbs the comms take.

so

if u really wanted to protect the most fish u'd ban the recs and catch and release and just let the comm's fish. think of all the carbon savings too!

Matt, it's a shared resource. I have said from the beginning I don't want to take away any one's livelihood but we all need to do our part.

Yes I understand there is a small mortality rate on released fish. This depends largely upon the angler. I don't chunk so 99% of my fish are lip hooked, with crushed barbs. Very easy to release. But not everyone is the same so that is something we need to look at. So at the very worst case I kill one out of every 10 fish I catch. How many out of 10 fish caught do the comm's or rec boats kill? And typically their fish are much larger than those caught from shore

Restrictions on charter boats and party boats as well as comm. as to size and quantity of fish kept

Increase in licensing costs across the board.

Also, fishing from shore, I have very limited access to the big cows that boats can get to so if I ever hooked onto that rare cow I'd probably let it go. It's not like I am pulling out a boat load of the big breeders every day.

Previous precedent indicates the comm's would be the 1st to be shut off, which by the way I don't want to see. However, if we all reduce our kills then there would be enough for everyone. So long as the system keeps getting abused and overused the declining numbers will continue until there is a moratorium and then everyone loses.

So, what do you want to see? A compromise and we all get to keep fishing or a moratorium?

For some reason everyone thinks I am against the comm's. I am for protecting the species and us all taking less to do so. No one group should bear all the burden but we also don't need to get rich off the resource either

[BasicPatrick]

Originally Posted by Doublerunner

So, what do you want to see? A compromise and we all get to keep fishing or a moratorium?

Can I seriously ask what info you have the sugest the S-B management is anywhere near a moratorium? I really would like to hear a reference to a perr reviewed scientific document.

FYI...there are about a half dozen very automatic triggers for madatory conservation measures built into the pland and although I am by far not always happy with the maagement of S-B we are so very far from most of the triggers to even suggest a moratoruim is iminent is just insanity.

The current "turn of the crank" stock asessment update is likely to cause some conservation measures be enacted but this stock is still pretty healthy by any standard.