I am SOTS: MAKE STRIPED BASS A GAMEFISH!

[SAUERKRAUT]

[QUOTE=Sea Dangles;774313]My point,in case you missed it, is that any angler who chooses to participate in the commercial harvest of striped bass is not doing the species a disservice.As you know,quotas will be met regardless of his participation.

SD: No way will you get me to buy into the above rationalization...unless I could find a way to "go commercial" for the season, and report three or four thousand pounds of bogus striped bass I didn't catch or kill...so I could do a small, individual part to offset the mass under reporting and over the quota harvest presently taking place in the present existing commercial fishing industry.

The present, existing recreational fishing interests are not in any way responsible for the nightmare of enforecement failures and monitoring failures of striped bass harvest coastal wide. It is the existence of, and the commercial commerce in, a striped bass fishery which produces the individual, the restaurant, the fish buyer, who will break the law with impunity for the sake of the dollar $$$ greed.

The recreational striped bass public is now sensitized and savvy to the issue; as a result, the public (yourself included Mr. SD, I know), fish with restraint and we are surely self policing. I saw a Greek taking sh.. up at the Canal 5 days ago for killing two rubbery old breeders, 30 and 38 pounds, which "legally" he was "entitled" to do!
And the sh.. wasn't coming from me!

The commercial fishing industry defies any regulation much less self policing and self enforcement. And so the nightmare goes on. Are you with me or against me? Bonds.