#4: if, as you say, the problem is that only highly skilled fishermen can catch whiting in good sizes and numbers, there may certainly be a problem. i never said there was.
i’ll leave the treehugger comment for PeaPod, would be rude to grab all the low-hanging fruit.
#1: as jimmy pointed out, these species are used very commonly by a LOT of fishermen as bait too, so minimum sizes would complicate things… maybe too much. i, on the other hand, would gladly skip tarpon fishing and eat my bait if it happened to be a few 15+" whiting
#2: fred, wasn’t trying to say anything about the lack of truth in your recollection of bigger fish back then- in fact, i’m absolutely sure you’re right. now, please drag out some pictures and let’s get measurements on them titty bream!
On my recollection, probably not so much size as quantity and variety. I also remember 30-40 years ago the massive amounts of monster bullfrogs. They are still think in a few areas, but nothing like they used to be.
I’ll have to take some pictures of pictures… this are hybrids, so they don’t count.
wow not the response I was looking for!!! It does not take sceince to figure out that the fishing for these species sucks compared to 20 years ago! I don’t fish for them all that much anymore, nor does anyone really beacuse the ones you do catch are small. I am telling you that is not how it used to be. Catch and size limits have worked very well and I do think we need them. If any of you didn’t fish 20 years ago, you would not understand how awesome the limits on redfish have worked. Now they are everyhere and the fishing has been positively impacted. Even with bsb, I remember as a kid going out to 4ki and the limit was 8 inches at 20 per person. We would bring home 60 bsbs all 8-10 inches long. Catching one much bigger than that was rare. Now we are catching them 14-16 inches in 40ft of water. 10-20 years ago I would have thought you were crazy if you told me you were catching bsbs that big in 40 feet of water. Same with vermillion snapper. I remember fishing the thunderstar in the 90s and the vermillion were small. Now that we have regs in place, the vermillion fishing is better than ever. I don’t like big brother all up in my business either, but I don’t like seeing my resources exploited by ignorance.
you asked about whiting, they are not commercially fished,there is about 1/10th of the shrimp boats that were present in the '80s. There is no indication that they are in trouble, you are basing this on your personal experience. I think you should try fishing for them in a new area.
