Quote:
Originally Posted by dakota560
Dan when you say they, who exactly are you referring to? If as you say the mesh sizes being used are larger than 14" to allow 14" fish to swim through, why do the commercial regulations allow harvest of 14" fish? To Gerry's point earlier, I'd prefer the mesh size be 14" to have less breeders harvested. What your suggesting is larger fluke are being targeted because of the price differential which defeats the whole point of the 14" minimum. As far as the by-catch issue is concerned, regardless of what NMFS allows, the net result (no pun intended) is a significant amount of fluke are being killed, tossed back dead and not reported in FVTR's. Reason they're thrown back dead doesn't matter, fact that they are does.
While I agree the ocean is in many cases the only thing commercial operators know, you simply have more faith in commercial fishing ideologies than most. I do a lot of reading and a lot of research and have read too many articles about illicit netting and lived to see too many species wiped out in my lifetime by commercial operations. Ling, whiting, cod, mackerel, weakfish (which never rebounded), bass in the 70's, herring which caused the reduction boats to come down here and start mopping up all the bunker as well as the damage Omega Protein does, flounder, fluke, porgies, sharks, tuna etc. It took decades for the porgy fishery to rebound, let's see how long that lasts. Blackfish are next and it's already happening. Any fishery targeted by commercial interests will be exploited until it's no longer economically viable and any by-catch that gets in the way killed as well as ocean habitat destroyed. I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch but where do you draw the line. World demand for fish combined with technological advances in commercial fishing equipment will destroy every fishery until there's not a species left to fish for. That doesn't mean every commercial operator has no conscience, it means there's a history which can't be ignored of one species after another being destroyed by commercial over fishing.
Hopefully we agree (based on the NMFS data we have to work with) fluke reproduction has been decimated over the last 25 or more years. Do you agree commercial fishing should be closed during the Fall migration until we better understand the impact it's having on egg reproduction and the spawning process in general? Until the cause of the reproduction problem is understood and the trend reversed, no amount of changes to catch, possession limits, length of season will compensate enough to rebuild this fishery. Last 15 years prove that point and why every year the options we get to choose from amount to nothing more than scraps. NMFS and ASMFC reshuffle the same deck every year while the fishery is hamstrung today with the same problems it faced 15 years ago.
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I wish if people wanted to eat fish they had to catch their own . I want to eat elk as much as some guy in Colorado wants to eat fluke .
Don’t see them sending me any elk .
But the case is our fishery feeds more than just us .
While everyone knows commercial fishing has hurt many species in the past , these local boats are highly watched .
F&G wait for them at the docks , and go with them to watch their weights caught .
Their boats are electronically monitored 365 days a year .
The free for all isn’t happening like it used to .
Beyond that unlike some who are drinking the koolaid I don’t believe the numbers NMFS gave us .
For more than a few reasons .
First is I personally see no lack of fish in any of the areas we fish from BARNEGET INLET to north of the Verizono.
No matter where we fish between them we find good bodies of fish .
Commercial guys fishing this area used to fish from BARNEY to FIRE ISLAND to meet their catch quotas. Most fish within 10 miles of their docks the whole season now.
Ask fisherman around what they are catching . Most will tell you they threw back 25 fish just short of 18”.
If we had a 17” limit they would be saying it was the best fluking ever .
NMFS has hit the magic number at 18” .
Talk to boats actually doing the netting for recruitments , they will tell you they are asked to drag areas they know won’t hold fish .
The numbers are bogus , catches can’t be good and NMFS numbers be correct.
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If we really wanted to believe NMFS numbers as I pointed out at the meeting .we should go back to a 16” size limit
As recruitment by their numbers showed at an all time high with us taking a lot more fish home.
I still would like to know when a fluke drops a million eggs , are half male and half female ?
Or did Mother Nature make more females naturally .
As according to most info 98% of the fish we have been taking for years have been females.
And there isn’t anyone throwing them back.
REAL answers need to be addressed to create real management plans .
Instead IMO the government wants both recs and commercial fisherman to. Get frustrated and stop fishing .
Then they can sell the fish for political gain to other countries willing to pay a lot more money for the fish.
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