[Destroyer]

Originally Posted by THEFERMANATOR

What has happened is since this has been such a large sport fish industry where catch and release has been practiced heavily without alot of landings, they are now basing teh allowed catch limits off of there new numbers of total fishermen on the water(ANYBODY with a boat regardless of what type is counted) and how many are landed. Since the landings are so low they have come to the conclusion that they MUST be undergoing overfishing and be protected. Welcome to modern fisheries science. If you cathc them you get penalized for getting to many, if you release them you get penalized for not bringing in enough. If you are surveyed at the ramp and refuse to cooperate they will mark you down as having limits of everything, nothing, or that you're poachers, if you cooperate they will spin it and say the limits are too high and too many are coming in or if you don't have all your targeted species limited it is because the biomass is too low and the limits need to be reduced. We as fishermen have sat by too long, and now I'm afraid anybody who goes out and brings home a decent catch(not wiping out a reef but simply a night or two's meals) will be targeted as a poacher.

So true... They are doing the same thing up here on the East Coast. Fluke are at an all time high, and they were talking about closing the fishery because the biomass hasn't hit the 2012 tonnage they wanted... meanwhile there are more damn Fluke then you can shake a stick at. They are doing the same thing with Black Sea Bass... seems they need "Protecting" also. About the only thing they seem to be on target with is Weakfish (Sea trout). That fishery is in trouble and needs to be closed, not because of the recreational fishermen but from the commercial draggers that are destroying the bottom where they spawn. Setting their nets as soon as they leave port and just creating havoc... but that's ok, cause they aren't the "bad" sportfishermen, they have to make a living. It makes my blood boil.