[hammer4reel]

Tom
There is no doubt there will always be the guys who cheat .
And they def can cause major damage .
The research set aside program was stopped after a boat payed for 30000 pounds was caught selling 289000 pounds .

My point about the commercial guys who have fished the ocean their whole lives are seeing more fluke than ever.
Many other things they fish for have had fluke showing up as bycatch in places they hadn’t before .
I think they have more knowledge on fish numbers than the numbers NMFS gives us .

We had another great season last year .and traveled less to get to good bodies of fish than years past .

Find the bait , find the fish .
What has def helped the recreational fishing in our area is the betters seasons have been closed through the summer . That leaves much more fish for us to catch than years past when they were fishing the same areas as us daily.

I also see all the boats regularly fishing tournaments to be doing just as well as we did .
They always said 10 % of the fisherman catch 90% of the fish .
And reading here on many posts I believe it’s pretty accurate .

The charter captain you make mention of proves daily , with good fisherman on board and his expertise their are LOTS of fish to be caught where 200 other boats claim there isn’t a fish to be found.

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