Quote:
Originally Posted by hammer4reel
Maybe someone had to explain how release mortality went from 9 percent to 39% in what was actually held against us in the same document they presented .
In Order for a third of our quota to be from released bass , you would have had to CR 4 times as many fish as what was kept
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Dan you're right on the money with your comments. If you look at the 2024 stock assessment there was just shy of 6 million fish making up the entire recreational and commercial catch which captures both harvest and discard mortality. About 2.4 million of those fish are categorized as recreational catch and release mortality. The last year, our recreational statistics are almost 50/50 harvest and discard mortality which there's simply no data or reason to support that conclusion. If there were 2.4 million stripers killed from catch and release, we'd have striped bass washing ashore all over our beaches and you'd see floaters up and down the coast which is simply not the case. The more we address prudent fishing with circle hooks and the discontinuance of treble hooks using bait, catch and release percentages have actually increased. I'd love to have one person from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center "NEFSC" or National Marine Fishery Service "NMFS" explain how they arrived at discard mortality as they truly have no clue at all. It's a number they arbitrarily make up to restrict recreational catch.
