Dave every call I had with Dustin Learning and Kiley Dancy involving introducing a slot and the associated benefits immediately turned into how much of the season would the recreational sector be willing to give up for that accommodation. The problem with the system is no one is factoring the benefits of harvesting younger age classes with a more balanced gender mix into the equation and completely ignoring the impacts on improved recruitment of that change in this fishery.

What I find to be a complete inequity between the sectors is as most know commercial can retain any fish 14" or larger. So commercial can harvest 14", 15" or 16" fish year round with no impact whatsoever to their quota or fishing access but that's not the case with the recreational sector. If the recreational sector wants to harvest those age classes, we're expected to sacrifice more than we have already in spite of the obvious benefits to the fishery.

If the recreational quota allows 3 fish per day per angler to be harvested, why would the harvest of 3 fish at 18" be acceptable yet the harvest of 3 fish at 16" not be if quotas are all weight driven. Someone help me understand the point of a daily possession limit if the above were not true.

The answer is those daily possession limits are theoretical and essentially meaningless. If recreational anglers on average came close to harvesting those levels daily, the recreational sector would overfish their quota by probably 100% to 200%. The regulations the following year would be slashed. In 2018, 92% of trips resulted in slightly over one fish caught per angler. And that number excludes trips resulting in no fish landed. Think about how far we've fallen with this fishery. With the current size and daily position limits in place, in 2018 the average fluke retained per angler trip was less than one fish! And since the regulations in place today are essentially the same, I would expect the same to hold true today.

What all this should mean to each of you is that the federal and state governments have essentially manipulated the regulations to have the recreational angler on average harvest less than one fish per trip. That's the reality of where this fishery is at whether you realize it or not. Size minimums are being used to regulate harvest, daily possession limits are essentially irrelevant. Case in point, how many fish do you think you'd retain each trip if you had a 10 fish daily possession limit but the size minimum was increased to 30".

Until fisheries management realizes this fishery needs to be managed based on size and gender of fish harvested and not weight, the fishery will continue its struggles. No different than the conditions that caused the recent change in regulations with the striped bass fishery. Introduce a slot, protect the very young age classes, promote harvest of the middle age classes, protect the breeders and larger females while improving recruitment. In the process, reduce discard mortality which is a huge issue recreationally due to the regulations and commercially due to selective harvest. Not all that hard to understand and completely supportable based on fishery management's own data. The hard part is finding someone to listen to basic common sense and stop playing politics with an incredibly vital public resource.