Fri/Sat Fluke.....

[Duffman]

Short Fri afternoon trip after fueling up. Stayed local around Earle and picked at em the whole time. Small 1/2 oz white BT’s shallow worked well.

Had the family out Sat so didn’t plan on hitting anything too snaggy. Tip,Knoll, Romer, Coney, Rockaway, Between the Channels and finished up at the Bug.

Decent action everywhere. Amount of shorts was staggering. We easily put 100 fish on deck with only 3 over 18. With this crew its more about quantity than quality so mission accomplished. Chartreuse gulp ruled the day. White ok. Nuclear chicken totally ignored.

Bunker pods everywhere yet again. Spearing in marina and loads of em tight to the beach being harassed by Snappers. Porpoise at top of Earle on ride home. Water clean and surface temps 75+ On the incoming.

Survived our first hook in the finger of the season. Good pliers are god-send:D

For anyone still running a 2 stroke like me.....switched to Pennzoil XLF this year. Do it. You won’t regret it!!

[BigRock44]

Very nice report! Lots of action all around to keep everyone interested is always good. Hope to get out and post my own report soon...

[dakota560]

Decent action everywhere. Amount of shorts was staggering. We easily put 100 fish on deck with only 3 over 18.

Duffman great to hear you had an enjoyable day on the water with your family with a lot of action. Here's how this report will be interpretted by our friends in fisheries management. Discards to keepers were 33:1. And since recreational has a 32% discard mortality rate to landings, that means for every 1 fish landed 10 fish assumed to die from discard mortality. Both those numbers come out of the RHL (recreational harvest limit) which means the more fish dying from discard mortality the less fish recreational anglers will be able to retain.

It's like the Perfect Storm "There's no way out." We all know the outcome there, recreational fishing community is going to suffer the same fate as the reg's have us boxed in.

[flukeyou]

Great report!!

[Irish Jigger]

Nice work Duff!

[Salty Dog]

Great report . Thanks !

[hartattack]

Nice job Duff. The other day chartreuse had no use, never know!

[Duffman]

Duffman great to hear you had an enjoyable day on the water with your family with a lot of action. Here's how this report will be interpretted by our friends in fisheries management. Discards to keepers were 33:1. And since recreational has a 32% discard mortality rate to landings, that means for every 1 fish landed 10 fish assumed to die from discard mortality. Both those numbers come out of the RHL (recreational harvest limit) which means the more fish dying from discard mortality the less fish recreational anglers will be able to retain.

It's like the Perfect Storm "There's no way out." We all know the outcome there, recreational fishing community is going to suffer the same fate as the reg's have us boxed in.

Read your reply a few times and have more questions than answers.

For every 1 fish landed 10 are assumed to die? Still trying to make sense of that?? Or is it 1 in 10 die?

And how is the number 32% determined?

[dakota560]

Read your reply a few times and have more questions than answers.

For every 1 fish landed 10 are assumed to die? Still trying to make sense of that?? Or is it 1 in 10 die?

And how is the number 32% determined?

Duffman let me try making it clearer. In 2017, New MRIP (the highly questionable new way of quantifying recreational landings) determined recreational landings were 4,565 metric tons. Recreational dead discards was determined to be 1,496 metric tons for a total catch (landings plus discards) assigned to the recreational sector of 6,061 metric tons. Discards (1,496) as a percentage of landings (4,565) representing fish retained over the size minimums was 32%. That's where the 32% comes from. The more relevant question is how they're arriving at landings and dead discard weights themselves, a diluted process in itself and one I won't bore you with the details but everyone on the planet including the scientific community itself has doubts about it's accuracy.

Recreational dead discard percentages were for a very long time determined to be 25% of discards. In 1999 Mark Terceiro, lead fisheries biologist at the Woods Hole Laboratory of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) or NOAA, changed that percentage to 10%, a significant reduction indicative they really have no idea what the true number is which is an accurate portrayal of all the date they use to quantify recreational statistics.

So in your example of catch the other day, at 25% they would have assumed 25 fish died as dead discard in the process of harvesting your 3 keepers, an 8:1 ratio of dead discard to keepers. The new percentage being used would mean 10 fish died (10% of 100 fish caught) in the process of retaining or landing 3 keepers, a 3.3:1 ratio. Since landings and dead discards factor into recreational harvest limits, the more shorts caught and considered dying from discard mortality the lower daily possession limits will be.

Like I said, it's a rigged game. In 1990, recreational dead discard since size limits were significantly lower at 13" was 414 metric tons. Said differently, the recreational angler because of lower size minimums were retaining more of their catch. In 2011 when size minimums increased to 18" for NJ and 20.5" for NY, recreational dead discard increased to 2,711 metric tons, an almost 600% increase. So today the recreational angler for the most part catches fish to release, fish with a 10% dead discard factor charged against our overall catch limit, so they can be harvested by the commercial sector year round and for any size over 14". Sad part is commercial continues harvesting the larger higher market value fish, which happen to be the future breeders of the species, while killing the smaller fish we're releasing in the process.

Sorry for the confusion with my earlier post, hope this makes more sense.