Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce Litton
If I could vote, I would for tighter freshwater limits, both by numbers and size. I think a five bass limit is too much, but very few people keep bass.... But wild fish are the other issue, and at least they are more protected, and again, very few people take any.
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Agreed! A five bass limit with a 12" minimum is absurd. That's the same as catfish! The difference is Fish & Wildlife stocks hundreds of thousand of catfish and few bass.
Not that it matters because the fine for poaching bass is only $40 - so it's all a moot point anyway.
If Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass are vital to New Jersey's recreational sport fishery as Fish & Wildlife says they are - then they need to start acting like it.
As for the number of people taking home the bass...it used to be true that few bass were harvested. When I was younger, catch & release was gospel. The only people who killed bass were old guys who never got the message about catch & release and wide-eyed kids so enthralled with their trophy bass they couldn't bear to release it.
But things are different in New Jersey now. We are being crushed under a relentless tsunami of immigration. These new anglers have no tradition of sport-fishing and the concept of releasing a perfectly edible bass to conserve the American fishery for people they don't even know and children who haven't even been born yet is completely illogical and doesn't benefit them at all.
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