In NJ, fluke (summer flounder) is THE major business for party boats (head boats).
People won't pay to go for less than 5 fish, even if the chance of catching five 18" fish is next to zero.
That makes it impossible for them to accept fewer fish at a smaller size. The party boat guys will lobby for bigger sizes in order to keep higher limits and longer seasons.
As a boat owner, if it would actually help, I would rather have as low as 1 per person/per day at 16". That would pretty much guaranty fresh fillets for dinner any time I spend money on bait and gas. Spending a whole summer trying to stretch out a handful of keepers is bullcrab.
Same goes for stripers. Would rather keep a 24" fish over a 43" fish any day.
And BFT. Every one of those "Wicked Tuna" kills costs me a shot at 100,000 schoolies next year, and the next year and the next year.......
The data shows we need to keep more smaller fish and fewer big ones but the politics of it gives us the opposite regs.
Also, the draggers hammer our summer throwbacks all winter and shovel the dead small ones over the side to make their quota with all nice fish.
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