Quote:
Originally Posted by hammer4reel
How longs it been since you actually caught a fluke , and filleted it ?
Even when we had the slot the last two years all the fluke had eggs in them .
There were no males out of hundreds of fish we caught .
Newer study’s believe males hardly come inshore . So should we make it a minimum of 15 miles before you’re allowed to fluke ?
I agree they allow commercials to fish at times when they are stacked up , and easier to catch including the spawn .
But you’re constantly stretching even your own imagination to double or triple what actually happens .
Fg monitors pretty well what goes on here with local boats , not so sure how well with out of state boats .
As far as them only catching their quotas because it was lowered , there are more boats fishing here daily than ever .
Reason is most guys that scalloped now aren’t because of those quota cuts .
Fluke is the only thing available , so they are doing that .
.
I also didn’t say fish weren’t filling in here because of the slot .
I said the absence of age class fish that would be 18” was hammered the last two years .
Plenty of fish above 19” and under 17”
Data charts are only as good as the info used to make them .
Your data is always skewed , and that’s why it never got the traction it should have received .
|
How long has it been since I've caught and filleted a fluke, July of this year.
What's your point?
I've always said most fish over 18" are females so not sure what your comment is responding to. You can revisit all my prior posts if you wish. Do males typically stage offshore more than females, maybe that's today's conventional wisdom after all these years but it's not what Rutgers study showed. When's the last time you filleted a fish under 18" to see if it was male or female? Couldn't be later than 2007 which was the last time the minimum size limit was less than 18" in New Jersey at 17". I do however know back then many fish that size and smaller when the regulations allowed the recreational sector to harvest those smaller sizes many more fish being harvested were males and yes that was from filleting many fluke.
An 18" male fluke is about 8-9 years old, how many male fluke do you think in todays world actually live that long between natural mortality and year round commercial onslaught? About five years ago, two male fluke were given honorable mention in trawl studies in a presentation Kiley Dancy gave in Delaware. Their sizes were 20" and 21"! Even if males have a tendency of staging more offshore which I'd question, harvesting 18" plus fish will continue killing off almost exclusively female breeders which will be the ultimate death of this fishery.
Stretching my imagination, really. Question, when party boats catch hundreds of shorts and return to the docks with 7 keepers, how many of those same fish do you think commercials would kill if they worked that same patch of fish. I know commercials can keep 14" and up but that's not the size they're after, they retain the largest fish to get the highest catch value. So if you think federal observer numbers are wrong and commercials are reporting accurate discard percentages on VTR's or their discard to landing ratio is anywhere near what's being reported, you can keep believing that delusion.
FG monitors landings, they have no idea what discards at sea are and they're too stretched out to control illegal harvest by commercials. It's a problem in every state and one boat can do tremendous damage to the stock. Codfather and more recently Montauk FV New Age, owner operator Christopher Winkler, to mention a few. Black market commercial netting is rampant.
Commercials only catching their quota because it was lowered, I'm not even sure what you're responding to since I never brought that up. I do agree that fluke are getting pounded more than ever because of cuts in other fisheries so we agree on that.
I used NMFS data against them to illustrate the flaws in their policies. My essential conclusions were increased size limits to recreational pushed more access of the overall fishery to commercial at the recreational sector's expense. That's a fact. I showed that increases in size minimums had a direct correlations every year since 2000 to reductions in the proportion of females to males in the stock based on their own studies. That's a fact and one anyone whose fished this stock will attest to. And as the female population got clobbered, recruitment followed suit. That would seem to be common sense, kill the breeders and recruitment will suffer dearly. Females grow larger and live longer, a fact that's been supported by many independent studies so when you increase minimums and incent selective harvest by the commercial sector to maximize catch values as quotas are being cut, you're asking for huge problems.
I'm not a construction worker and don't profess to be. You're not a technical or analytical guy so don't try to be. I've done more research on this fishery than you ever will with select data I believe is representative of the fishery, passed peer review, years on the water, sources I have in the industry and common sense. Do I believe MRIP is accurate, not at all. Do I believe 25% natural mortality is accurate, I have no idea. Do I believe recreational discard percentages are correct, I think anything involved with MRIP is questionable at best. But my analysis isn't made up of that data. The trends I've shown in the fishery coinciding with regulations, changes in the biomass, reductions in size and possession limits, reduction in recruitment etc. are reflective of what we're seeing in the fishery so if you wish to opine on something you know nothing about that's your prerogative. My work turned a lot of heads but never got the traction it deserved because it challenged the decisions being made managing this fishery which showed those decisions are actually hurting it more than helping it and being made for the benefit of economics and not fisheries management. Politics in other words. You think Mark Terceiro, Mike Luisi, Kiley Dancy, Chris Batsavage, Chris Moore, Brandon Muffley, or any of the other decision makers from NMFS, NEFSC, ASMFC or MAMFC will admit to their mistakes over the last two decades managing this fishery or any other? Too much money changing hands. Doesn't work that way, just as Michael Waine from ASA decided to play politics instead of addressing the issues we discussed with him years ago.
Instead we've gone from one of the most robust fisheries ever to continued declines in the biomass, quotas and regulations to the recreational sector over the last two decades coinciding with the continued use of increased size minimums as the preferred method to manage recreational catch. This year's massive quota cuts, an abysmal season to date and you want us to believe this happened because of what? Since you probably filleted more fish than me this year, almost all females I'm sure, I'll bow to your ultimate wisdom of the fishery as to why this is all happening and what needs to be done to correct it. I'll do that if you answer the one question I asked in my earlier post which is name one fishery being managed the same way this fishery is which is sustainable and growing. You can't because there aren't any.
