If you really want to get mad

[Gerry Zagorski]

Read this and more in the the link below...

Can anyone really believe private boats caught more Sea Bass than every Trawler/Trapper/Partyboat/Charter Boat combined?

How the heck do fisheries management people keep their jobs let alone live with themselves by setting our regulations with blatantly faulty data like this?? " Best available science ??? Do you really believe that??

I guess on the other hand it finally gives us hard working-middle class-tax paying-neanderthal-kill everything fishermen something to be "offended" about.... PFFFFT... What a joke!

http://blog.morningstarfishing.com/2017/03/mrip-wheres-filter-3117.html

[june181901]

And I am willing to bet that one way or another we taxpayers paid for the cost of that load of nonsense.
Do they think we are dumb, illiterate or just don't care?

[howardrf]

It's sad to see what government regulations have done. When I fish in Florida in the winter, saltwater regs. closed most available species. I have fished in NY and NJ since I was 10 now 75. Now I go out on party boats once a week and have to contend with regs. and high cost just to enjoy a brainless day out
fishing. For the most part government intervention SUCKS. Great article!!

[PeteyHD]

Thanks Gerry now I am mad. Where are they getting these numbers from!!!???

[Gerry Zagorski]

The survey data and a bunch of other stuff probably gets fed into a spread sheet, it gets a bunch of false assumptions applied to it and spits out irrational landing information which is used to say we over fished :mad:

[bunker dunker]

or they know we don't have any big backers and will keep kicking us around like
tin cans.

[Capt. Lou]

Seems like the Trump administration is not gonna help , so dam disfunctiomal they may not even know we exist .
I'm sure the commercials get heard regularly , it's a money game more than ever now .
Unless we get some hi buck benefactors to step up we are going to face some tough times or it will catch n release solely .
It's hard to understand how some overpaid , over educated under informed about any fisheries issues bureaucrats can ruin all our livelihoods year after year without recourse from anyone .

[rwp2101]

It's outrageous. In my business we do something with any data from which we want to draw conclusions... it's called sanity checking, and we all know that this data is insane!

One way to combat this is with money to fund the same types of studies and get the real data but then well just find ourselves with each side arguing that their figures are the correct ones.

That cost would be large, but if we had the data and methodology used to arrive at these estimates we might be able get a stats masters student at Rutgers or some other school to take up a critical assessment of the methodology used as part of a thesis.

[frugalfisherman]

I don't get mad I get even by breaking regulations ever chance I get.

[Gerry Zagorski]

It's outrageous. In my business we do something with any data from which we want to draw conclusions... it's called sanity checking, and we all know that this data is insane!

One way to combat this is with money to fund the same types of studies and get the real data but then well just find ourselves with each side arguing that their figures are the correct ones.

That cost would be large, but if we had the data and methodology used to arrive at these estimates we might be able get a stats masters student at Rutgers or some other school to take up a critical assessment of the methodology used as part of a thesis.

This is exactly what the SSFFF is doing for Fluke

To date, SSFFF has spent in excess of $130,000 of donations and grants to fund research and to influence the creation of more refined stock assessment models specific to Summer Flounder. SSFFF-funded research was responsible for sex-specific mortality being included into the last stock assessment. This revealing information was submitted by renowned stock model scientist Dr. Mark Maunder in a white paper that was exclusively commissioned and funded by SSFFF.

[rwp2101]

Great! Donations made!

[Gerry Zagorski]

Great! Donations made!

Thank you RWP!!

Our regulations are a direct result of 2 main issues. Bad Science and methods used for landings and stock assessments and punitive non flexible laws applied to the science to seek to rebuild stocks. That's why I've always contended if we don't address them, we are all going to be in the same situation every year.... Figuring out which of the crappy options we want to accept based on the false quotas that have already been set.

One other wild card here, especially with Fluke is the methodologies being used to set the regulations required to meet our conservation equivalencies. In other words the amount of fish we can catch so we don't exceed our quotas and over fish. Basically when you over fish or the stocks are deemed in trouble, the knee jerk reaction is to raise the size limit so fewer fish are landed. Seems logical right??? Well not necessarily.

First of all the larger the fish the more discards are assumed because the assumption is you are throwing back more fish that die to get your keepers and that feeds into higher harvest assumptions. Also, our quotas are in pounds and larger fish weigh more so now you're multiplying the number of fish assumed landed against a higher weight per fish number.... No wonder they tell us we over fish year after year!!

Secondly based on the results of SSFFF size sex study, most of the 18 inch plus fish are females so now you force us to target the very breeder fish we need to sustain the fishery?? You can plainly see, based on their own stock assessment data that the fishery was on a very good trajectory when we were allowed to keep smaller fish....

We need to get off this Merry Go Round.... As you see, we have a vicious cycle going on here that certainly isn't working for the fisherman or, if you believe their numbers, the fish.