My buddy had a charter at the jetties 2 days ago and apparently caught 150 seabass fishing for sheeps and never caught a sheep cause the seabass were all over everything. He moved to several different spots as well. They are gonna destroy the inshore fishery. I never inshore fish but those that do are gonna be bummed in the coming years.
i am amazed at all the manufacturers that do nothing to support us in this fight,along with the economy this has had to put a hurting on their sales…
Yes FB great post…
What do you guys think of removing the size limit on or at least reverting back to the science-based eight inch size limit for BSB in state waters? What about federal waters? Tons of our Total Allowable Catch are allocated to dead discards of undersized BSB. The new thirteen inch size limit will allow federal fishery managers to allocate more TAC to dead discards and assume the recreational quota is filled even quicker as they use a larger average size for BSB in their landings equations.
One of the biggest problems in what you just described is the fact that our recreational quota is being assumed rather than gathered with real data!!! There are 408,000 lbs recreational seabass off our coast in 60 ft water right and thats all thats allowed from hatteras to south florida!
The SAFMC and NMFS are going to require a recreational reef fish permit at some point. It would be much better to get ahead of this by proposing an independent data collection business issue the permits and calculate the data. A $20 annual permit should cover the cost of online permitting and reporting. The total landings could be available to all permit holders. The permit numbers would give fishermen the power of a union IF they could get a 2/3 majority to agree on something. This could even include a vote of no confidence in fishery managers. The landings data could be used to support or oppose NMFS landings data.
Fully agree to get ahead of any federal permit and data collection with a state program that we fund and hold accountable at the state level.
What I think about the min. lengths limits in state waters is that the waters we’re talking about are by-in-large, shallow, and bsb discard mortality in the shallow waters should not change much regardless of the min. length on them for state waters because we’d be going from throwing all back to throwing almost all back (in state waters).
Thoughts?
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Gents, I’ve tried to stay out of the weeds on the forums and such, but I wanted to take a minute to express my gratitude to Phin for all he’s done. His (and RFA’s) support of this bill is one of the key factors that got it to its current position. Phin is a true champion of our fishery and we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
Thanks Wes.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
quote:
Originally posted by yellabirdGents, I’ve tried to stay out of the weeds on the forums and such, but I wanted to take a minute to express my gratitude to Phin for all he’s done. His (and RFA’s) support of this bill is one of the key factors that got it to its current position. Phin is a true champion of our fishery and we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
Thanks Wes.
Stephen Goldfinch
“Sleep When You’re Dead!”
Very well said Stephen!
Phin is looking out for everyone not just the charter and head boat captains like some.
Glad to know both you and Phin see the big picture. Keep up the great work!
Set the trap boys, we going to pass through them again!!