On Mon, 22 Jan 2007 21:55:07 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

On 22 Jan 2007 13:36:45 -0800, "Chuck Gould"
wrote:


NOYB wrote:
Catch your own fish. Or eat beef. Commercial guys rape the waters.



Hmm. So unless a person is wealthy enough to have an offshore fishing
boat similar to something that might be owned by a dentist down in
Naples, FL and the luxury of enough time to use it, he or she should
not be able to eat fish?

Is Mrs. NOYB's name Marie ("let them eat cake") Antoinette? :-)

Consider this: There would be a lot less infrastructure to support
sport fisheries if the same infrastructure couldn't be at least
partially justified as a support for commerce. Commercial and sports
fisheries, properly managed with an eye toward conservation in a
perfect world, should be able to coexist.

The problem is that the commercial's don't want to coexist - they want
it all.

And they want it now.

In the NE, the recreationals are constantly being hammered by the
commercials to the point where recreational quotas are consistently
reduced to maintain the commercial side of any fishery. Seasons are
reduced on the whim of the commercials if their tonnage in any given
fishery is down, size and quotas changed every year on recreationals
without commercial penalty for being over tonnage, the by catch
situation is getting more and more serious with virtual destruction of
the eco system - in particular Narragansett Bay where you can't find
bunker in the summer.

I'll give you a good example of the rape and pillage. ARC Bait out of
New Jersey comes into Narragansett Bay every Spring on a permit from
the RI DEM using spotter planes to "fish" for bunker - menhaden. Guess
what they do with the menhaden?

Sell them back to the recreational fisherman. You can't find menhaden
in Narragansett Bay after ARC Bait finishes and the net result is that
there is less forage resulting in fewer quality fish for recreation.

You can't stop them because they have a commercial permit to catch as
much as they can in a one week period - curiously enough, right in the
middle of the major migration period. It's their "right". Last year
they were caught over quota - $1,000 fine. Big whoop.

Oh, and don't ask the various Eco cops to actually enforce by-catch
laws or enforce quota rules - heaven's to Betsy, we don't have the man
power to do that. Instead, let's measure the fish the recreationals
catch at the boat ramps instead - and fine them - oh, $1,000 or so a
fish if it's 1/16th inch under.

I don't want to hear about commercials.

The same is being done to the bunker in the Chesapeake, except that the
commercials are using them for fertilizer and fish oil. The effect on the
bay is tremendous.
--
***** Have a super day! *****

John H