I think of myself as someone who cares a lot about the bay and the fishery, I always try to make sure a fish thats released will have the best chance of survival, it doesn't matter if its a Skate, Carp or Eel, I refuse to ever harm anything if at all possible, even the ones that are thought of as trash fish. I was totally in favor of the past catch and release restrictions eventhough I have practiced it myself ever since I was a small child. To me, Conservation is about doing things to help the fish that are released survive and only kill what you are going to eat, when the preseason catch and release became much more popular and many novices started doing it more and more, something had to be done to make people practice better catch and release methods, it was obvious they weren't going to do it on thier own.
One big problem I see with many conservational organizations is that they use the name of conservation to try to restrict commercial fishing so they can have more fish to catch (and yes kill) for themselves, but the same (so called) conservational organizations time and time again will fight tooth and nail to try to keep recreational fishermen from ever getting any restrictions that could benefit the fishery. why? because they are really recreational organizations under the guise of conservation. they see commercial fishing as their competition for the same fish and they want it all for themselves. you really can't blame them entirely because its really the members that are paying dues that get mad when they are the ones facing restrictions, I guess you have to give your customers what they want.
I've been accused in the past of being a waterman just because I have sometimes defended them, but the truth is I've lived in Baltimore my whole life and don't even know any Watermen. I've just always beleived that if any restrictions are ever needed, everyone should sacrifice equally. For me its never been as much as defending Watermen and commercial fishing as it is defending the American people and their right to choose to buy fish from the store and not be forced to catch their own if they want something other then a genetically altered fish that was farm raised. besides there are many people, disabled, elderly or poor that are not as fortunate as many of us to be able to hop into an expensive boat and catch their own fish. Not to mention the huge impact that it would be on our already fragile economy by taking commercially caught fish from the consumer..And once a fish like the Striped bass is made a "gamefish" (which basically means ban commercial fishing of them and only allow people who catch them themself to keep them) It would be hard to ever get that right back, We get to many of our rights taken away from us now. I would be in support if the majority of Americans wanted that, but the truth is most don't, they vote for their support of commercial fishing everytime they buy a commercially caught fish from the store. Many conservational orgs try to make others beleive that they are the majority view, but some like the MSSA don't even have the majority of their members supporting their anti-commercial fishing views, they claim when they try to ban something like nets that it is backed by their members but most of their members are only members for their tournaments and don't even know or care that they are trying to ban commercial fishing. I was a member of the MSSA for many years for the tounaments and I can tell you that they do not inform their members at all when they try to restrict commercial fishing, but yet they will claim what they are doing is backed by them.
The MSSA has even claimed in the past that commercial fishing should be restricted because they are making money from the fish, and you can't trust them to be honest, but yet the MSSA tournament is a multi million dollar operation in itself, and beleive me, I've been to many of their wiegh ins and there is an incredible number of fish killed that day, but somehow they think thats OK since they are the ones benefiting financially from it.
Not only is there a huge amount of Rockfish killed during that tournament by recs, but its a fact that recs overall harvest far more Rockfish then commercial fishermen. We actually kill more fish by catch and release then the entire Striped bass commercial harvest
Don't get me wrong, Im obviously not against Recreational fishing either, but anyone can see the hypocrisy of any recreational fishermen thats against commercial fishing when we do more harm then they do.
Some may point out the illegal gillnets found two winters ago, but its also a fact that Recreational fishermen poach far more fish also, and finding the nets was a good thing, it showed that DNR was doing their job, the big problem was that some of the (so called) conservational orgs tried to use the illegal gilnets as a way to ban nets altogether, which would never stop poaching, it would only stop the people who are fishing legally, and if Recs poach more why wouldn't orgs like the MSSA not try to ban rec fishing also? because its a recreational fishing club not a real conservational org, they see the commercial fishery as their competetion, if they could knock them out ( and the people that choose to buy their fish instead of catching their own) they would have more fish for themselves.
One thing thats often concerned me about banning commercial fishing is that it could back fire, some think it would mean more fish for them but a lot of money goes in to helping our fishery from the money generated by commercial fishing, besides, the fishery in the Chesapeake seems to be doing very well, there is no logical reason why we would even need to ban commercial fishing.
One ploy the (so called) conservational orgs try to do is claim the fish population is in trouble, its a tactic that has worked in the past, over exagerate how bad the fish population is to get restrictions on commercial fishing, then when you succeed, overexagerate how much better the fishing is, they did it recently with the Blue crab and the Yellow perch in the Chesapeake, and also in Florida to get a net ban. There are many that try to claim the Rockfish population in the bay is low also, but anyone that fishes the bay regulary knows that is not true, in fact we recently had one of the best YOY (young of year) indexes for Striped bass in many years. Some people only claim the population is low to try to get restrictions on coms, its pretty hard to get resrtictions if you admit the population is fine, which makes you wonder why they have such a vendetta against coms when the population isn't even in danger, could be the brainwashing they get from their meetings. Its not uncommon for someone to join a club like the MSSA or CCA because they want to learn how to catch more fish, but are then told that its not their fault they are not catching, its because there is a low population and its the commercial fishermens fault. which I believe is a cop out. If you ever have a problem catching fish in the Chesapeake you are simply doing something wrong, work at finding what you are doing wrong and don't look for the easy way out by blaming someone else...One of my biggest fears is that we could once again get a problem with over population of Striped bass. after the moritorium I beleive there was a over population, I think its the reason so many Stripers have deseases like Mico, they ran low on forage because their numbers were so high (preditors should never out number their prey) and they had no choice but to eat each other, which is a recipe for desease. There are many that believe the disappearance of the Weakfish is a direct result of the over population of Striped bass. I know for a fact that Rock love to eat Weakfish, they would knock a menhaden out of the way to get to one!
Some people only want to ban nets but still allow commercial fishermen to catch with hook and line, I really beleive that if you are going to catch large numbers of fish, nets are a much more humane way then catching them on hook and line, just the under and over sized fish that die from getting thrown back would be huge, wouldn't a true conservationist support nets over hook and line? or do some of them think less would be harvested with hook and line and that would mean more could be harvested by them? Im not sure if less would be harvested, I think a savvy Hook and liner could harvest just as many, but I sure wouldn't want hook and line fishermen constantly raiding the spots im fishing, They would be everywhere, probally calling every other H&Ler to any spot that has fish
One of the things that seem the most disturbing about all this is that there are some people in the news media that ride the shirt tails of orgs like the CCA and constantly write negative articles about commercial fishing to try to get people against it, there are even peolple that joined the DNR, NOAA, ASMFC and other fishery departments for no other reason but to try to ban commercial fishing from within.
Its really simple, If you are against commercial fishing, don't buy commercially caught fish, but never try to make people who have no problem with them stop. Thats where I draw the line, when people try to dictate whats best for everyone else.
Its even OK to be against commercial fishing, you do sometimes need opposing views just to keep people in line, everyone has a right to their opinion, but you should never try to make others live by what you believe
I think the real key is for EVERYONE to do their part to conserve, if we ever get a problem with the fishery that can get fixed with restrictions, everyone should do their part and be restricted as equally as possible.
Conservation doesn't mean to try to make others conserve so you don't have to (or so you can have even more to harvest), thats anti-conservation
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