Quote:
Originally Posted by pectoralfin
If I catch a 19" fish and then a 22" fish which one do I throw back?
And I wonder how many fish has to be caught to get the slot limit?
I admittedly am not as knowledgeable about this situation as others on this site, but I see the mortality increasing which you know will be held against us in the future.
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Mortality rates are assumptions in a table somewhere and if you want to question them that's a different discussion. Those assumptions are not at the state level, they are at the federal and BTW I don't agree with those assumptions either.
Right now this whole system and how we set our regulations, at least on the recreational side is based on prior year MRIP and there is an assumption on mortality for throw backs. The stock status does not figure into this which is my mind is totally crazy...
Look at Seabass, a fishery that has been totally rebuilt for many years and we got a 20%reduction. At the same time we have Fluke which has not been rebuilt but because of MRIP data we got a 16% liberalization??
This is why I support recreational reform conversations going on right now.... It's the stock status and not unreliable assumptions like MRIP which should govern our regulations. We might as well be spinning a roulette wheel to decide what our regs need to be...
This is IMHO is what needs to change and this does not happen on a state level, it happens and is tying to happen at a federal level and change the way the feds manage our fishery.
We seem to always seem to want to react and treat the symptoms which show up once a year a state level... What we need to do is treat the cause, which is changing how our fisheries are managed and get involved on a federal level.
Sorry for the long post and this is not directed at you... It's a general statement and my opinion of how and where we need to focus our attention to really change things. This is a federal, not a state issue.
