NOAA sets fluke reduction harvest for 2016:

[JBird]

I've wanted a slot for fluke for years. Say 2 fish between 16"-18". I just hate unhooking a tourists' gut hooked 17 incher and tossing it back knowing it's crab food. It's such a waste.

[hammer4reel]

Originally Posted by mako28

Cant wait to see the numbers they will say recs caught in the month of Sept. when everyone was blown out for most of the month. I agree a rod and reel can never harm a fishery. Take a draggers nets when the doors dig in or the roller gear. Mesh size of nets dont have a conscious. Once the back of that net gets clogged with keepers and junkfish everything else is killed by sheer suffocation. Quota filled, shovel back all the dead without discrimination. Yet a rod and reel can catch a limit and quit fishing. Nets arent that smart. Rod and reel - lets start at a 50/50 shot. get a bite miss it. Draggers no miss. Get another bite, miss it. Draggers dont miss. The fish doesnt like your offering doesnt like it, doesnt take a second look, swims away. Draggers - no bait no miss. So you can sell the BS that rod and reel can compare. Add up all their tows and the days they are out while most are tied to the dock, it will never compare. We take this BS of cuts YOY, the recs do their part and yet some still look to give back,lol. Yea right.... Bridge for sale any interest.

everytime I see about how Recs cant hurt a fishery makes me think there must be alot more guys who just dont know how to fish then im accustomed t talking to .

sure a dragger goes through an area and the fish are caught. no denying that, they dont have to want to bite, they dont have to get hooked etc.
but each of them is taking 500 pounds a day. and really there arent that many net boats here. no where near the days to fish we get to.

a good charter boat with boat limits of 6 guys can put between 70 and 120 pounds in the boat. add up all the charter boats, good private boats, then all the head boats and you would see , we also put a serious hurting on the fish each week.

last season when guys cried there were no fish around, the draggers were staying local, and doing short drags for their daily quota.

there were ALOT of fish around.
but if you were not fishing the small areas holding bait you werent going to find fish.
they arent going to stay in areas that lack food.

guys who looked and found the bait had quick limits each day.
but still in all.
I am SURE the guys I know who fish alot and put their time in , caught way more fish than the local draggers took

[CCMPmonmouth]

Originally Posted by Duffman

what does that mean?

I know its only 1 line but you should be able to read between it.

[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.

[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.