NOAA sets fluke reduction harvest for 2016:

[Capt John]

Originally Posted by 1captainron

"I am most disappointed in the restrictive rule for our commercial and recreational Fishermen in New Jersey", Spoken like a life time politician!!

Pallone promises to work with OTHER members of the States delegation "For more favorable catch limits in the Future.........Wait a minute, many years ago when all this crap started, wouldn't today be the future they talked about? Hasn't he been working with Other delegate's in the past or is this just gonna happen now??

It's more Bullshit once again....if you think for a minute that anyone in the business isn't going to do what they have to do to survive, your nuts.
All those who have sat back on their ass all these years and did nothing but complain, will be the first one's typing how they can't believe all the Pirates out there! We will be made to look like criminals.

Once again, tossing back DEAD fish and killing the Breeders....Smart move NOAA. For the Millions of dollars this organization gets, you'd think they'd have it together by now. Justifying the Job or the Organization at the expense of the American people.

Capt....your last paragraph says it all. Amazing incompetency!

[bunker dunker]

we need to step it up a notch fellows.we have to hit them were it hurts

[Capt Sal]

Tell me what progress we have made. Each year it gets worst. Pallone needs to go. I don't care if he is a nice guy. If we keep loosing a little each year it will take decades to get it back. We have tooooooooo many organizations to represent us. We need one and that will give us more power. A Governor that actually cares about recreational fisherman would be nice. We don't have that. I have no respect for Christie. His political ambitions do not include us. He has no chance to be president anyway. What would help is a new president that is an avid salt water fisherman. Noaa needs to be totally restructured. It has to come from the top not state senators or Reps.

[RussH]

Rather than get rid of Pallone maybe we need to elect more people who think like he does. The ocean is important to him. Someone mentioned leftist policies or something but frankly our super right wing Governor doesn't seem to give a crap about the recreational fisherman either. Also it's not like Pallone isn't doing anything. This law he just got passed will at least keep the water a bit more livable.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf....html#comments

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by RussH

Rather than get rid of Pallone maybe we need to elect more people who think like he does. The ocean is important to him. Someone mentioned leftist policies or something but frankly our super right wing Governor doesn't seem to give a crap about the recreational fisherman either. Also it's not like Pallone isn't doing anything. This law he just got passed will at least keep the water a bit more livable.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf....html#comments

As a real right winger, I must say calling Christie ""super right wing"" is a bit of a stretch, don't you think??.. Real righties don't get elected in NJ, or NY for that matter...
Pallone's voting record is leftist/progressive all the way, and always has been. He votes with the other Democrats in Congress 93% of the time. Typical party hack..
You need to do some research.The man always votes against business and for the "progressive agenda". Don't forget NJ shore fishing is a VERY big business state wide His voting record is available online.. As long as NY/NJ insists on electing tree hugging progressives of EITHER party, the fishing opportunities will continue to dry up.. take a look at the state of California the Democrat/socialist mecca. Huge no fishing areas in the ocean. Is that what you really want for NJ?... Keep electing leftists.. you'll get there.

[papabear2611]

How many of us from PA. would be there marching, writing, calling, whatever to try to help, but our vote doesn't count to the politicians I guess. Already so many of us send $ to all the groups we hope will help, already...
We love to just get out, despite spending hundreds, to just go fish. But having something to bring home for the family plate is a bit of a big deal too. Sick as it might sound to people close to the ocean, that fluke, striper, tog dinner is more valued than a freakin lobster to many of us.
What, if anything can your fellow state fisherman do to help?

[RussH]

Sit in your garage, turn the car on and wait... How's the climate? Now extrapolate that over billions and billions of gallons and pretend earth is the garage... Climate change is real and one of the greatest dangers and challenges our children will face.

To the matter at hand I don't know what the big agenda is but I do know if not for regulations you'd need the Lorax to save the fish. Not from us but from the commercials. They would fish it till every last fish is gone. I don't think recreational people should be punished for corporate greed. Thats the real issue here. Individual anglers and the businesses we frequent are being damaged for no reason. Hook and line can never do the damage the draggers are doing.

[Gerry Zagorski]

The regulation issues we face are due to a few things:

First and foremost is the Magnison Stevens Act. It's purpose of this act and the 2007 revisions to it were:
- Acting to conserve fishery resources
- Supporting enforcement of international fishing agreements
- Promoting fishing in line with conservation principles
- Providing for the implementation of fishery management plans (FMPs) which achieve optimal yield
- Establishing Regional Fishery Management Councils to steward fishery resources through the preparation, monitoring, and revising of plans which (A) enable stake holders to participate in the administration of fisheries and (B) consider social and economic needs of states.
- Developing underutilized fisheries
- Protecting essential fish habitats
- Additionally, the law calls for reducing bycatch and establishing fishery information monitoring systems.

That all sounds pretty good right??

Well as usual and just like the Affordable Health Care Act, although it sounds great in theory, the reality is not so good.

With the act we are losing the ability as a state to control our regs within our state boundaries. The fisheries management is now regionalized so states can no longer choose different regs... You saw it with Fluke and Stripers recently and you'll probably see it with Blackfish soon too. Problem here is we as states have no individuality and no say in our local waters so like it or not, we get what the Regional Councils decide.

Next is as a result of the Act, if a fishery is deemed to be in trouble, the government has no flexibility and by law they need to take measures to protect the fishery. They do this by either making the regs more restrictive or in extreme cases, closing an entire fishery down. I think I speak for most of us recreationals when I say "if a fishery really is in trouble, then let's do what we need to do to bring it back". Problem here is we are told we are overfishing and stocks are in decline or headed that way and the science they use for stock assessment are flawed.

So what we need to do is 2 fold. Politically we need to try and add some Flexibilty to the Magnuson Stevens Act and have our interests better represented in the Regional Fisheries Management Councils. At the same time we need to force the government to use proper science and methods to assess the stocks.

Thats why I support the NJRFA and the SSFFF. RFA is fighting more on the political side and the SSFFF is fighting the science.

[AndyS]

Another group:

http://www.njoutdooralliance.org/abo...-njoa/mission/

[RussH]

I bet if I look back 6 or 7 years on this board I can find posts where I and others have asked for Slot fluke. It makes perfect sense. I'm sure recs can do damage to stock. But we're not literally destroying the ocean bottom doing it. I still think the burden of conservation needs to be on the ones who can do the absolute most damage to the stock. Not that we shouldn't adhere to rules, of course we should. But they need to make sense. And commercials keeping 16" fish while we search for 18s is ridiculous.