Bill S.337 An Act relative to the conservation of Atlantic striped bass - NEED ACTION

[Daysatsea]

Warm water/no bait = no bass. Look outside three miles in the deep and they are everywhere.

[MarkP]

Warm water/no bait = no bass. Look outside three miles in the deep and they are everywhere.

Yep...

MarkP

[rirockhound]

Any time you give something up, you never get it back....just remember that, if SF wins this what is next? It opens the door for other crazy groups to come in and use legistlation to control fisheries management.

Except that bass was given up for a while, and then was given back....

1 @ 36 (or 34")" for rec and charter
Reduce the commercial take SOME (not all, but some reduction. Maybe phase in 25% or something)

This is a tough issue, but it seems pretty common sense to me. Not a moratorium, just a modest reduction. The same 50 guys are still going to land most of the MA Bass during the season regardless.

[keithj]

I'd be completely in favor of this.

Except that bass was given up for a while, and then was given back....

1 @ 36 (or 34")" for rec and charter
Reduce the commercial take SOME (not all, but some reduction. Maybe phase in 25% or something)

This is a tough issue, but it seems pretty common sense to me. Not a moratorium, just a modest reduction. The same 50 guys are still going to land most of the MA Bass during the season regardless.

[100 % commercial]

I'd be completely in favor of this.

i wouldnt.as one of the guys who depends on this for a good chunk of his living and for the most part catches 30 a day,if you take 25% away from this qouta, its to much.Bass are a important piece of our income.If we lose one of our small boat comm fisheries we are screwed.Bass are one of the small incomes that make it work at the end of the year when you add it into whatever other fishery you are involved in .We are already going for a small piece to begin with.STart with cutting recs to one a day and they still would dwarf what the comm quota takes.As a commercial fisherman,we need to depend on multiple fisheries to survive and taking any quota off the small one we have to begin with would really hurt.Thats if you are truly comm and not out there just trying to pay for fuel or buy golf clubs.

[KP161]

Personally I think there are plenty of bass out there but I haven't read the stock assessments. I never understood why they dropped the recreational keeper size to 28". Didn't like it at the time they did it. Pretty easy to catch 28" fish. I liked it at 32" or even bigger.

[keithj]

That'd be fine with me too. I'm not too hung up on reducing the commercial quota. That doesn't seem like a huge player to me in this. Let's just increase the size limit to 36 and drop the rec from 2 to 1. Commercial take would still be the same quota in pounds but we're upping the size limit so that kept fish have spawned one more year.

KP161- I'm sure there are still some places where there are a lot of bass, even though the license plates at Ryder's and the reports I hear from buddies who fish commerically tell another story...BUT, the thing that scares me the most is the lack of small fish that i've noticed over the past few seasons in places where they should be, with plenty of bait. The river I keep my boat on is usually loaded with schoolies all year. Late May, in years past, its covered in small fish. A slow morning on the fly was 25 schoolies. The last few years those fish haven't been there. The fish I did catch fly fishing last year were 28-34 inches long and few and far between. Very few little guys. That freaks me out. And a lot of other guys I know are telling the same story.

i wouldnt.as one of the guys who depends on this for a good chunk of his living and for the most part catches 30 a day,if you take 25% away from this qouta, its to much.

[100 % commercial]

i would have no problem with 36 inch fish. i always wished they left it at that.That alone would extend season.

[KP161]

That'd be fine with me too. I'm not too hung up on reducing the commercial quota. That doesn't seem like a huge player to me in this. Let's just increase the size limit to 36 and drop the rec from 2 to 1. Commercial take would still be the same quota in pounds but we're upping the size limit so that kept fish have spawned one more year.

KP161- I'm sure there are still some places where there are a lot of bass, even though the license plates at Ryder's and the reports I hear from buddies who fish commerically tell another story...BUT, the thing that scares me the most is the lack of small fish that i've noticed over the past few seasons in places where they should be, with plenty of bait. The river I keep my boat on is usually loaded with schoolies all year. Late May, in years past, its covered in small fish. A slow morning on the fly was 25 schoolies. The last few years those fish haven't been there. The fish I did catch fly fishing last year were 28-34 inches long and few and far between. Very few little guys. That freaks me out. And a lot of other guys I know are telling the same story.

Well that's not good on the schoolie thing you are talking about in your experiences. I'm all for 36" too. Like 100% Comm said it would extend the commercial season a little longer as well.

28" is more harvesting than fishing. 34 or 36" recreational would be back to fishing.

[100 % commercial]

Well that's not good on the schoolie thing you are talking about in your experiences. I'm all for 36" too. Like 100% Comm said it would extend the commercial season a little longer as well.

28" is more harvesting than fishing. 34 or 36" recreational would be back to fishing.

make it all 36 so the rec guy or the guy who wants to bend the rules has to atleast be able to catch a keeper before he brings it backdoor to a restaurant.usually done by people who cant catch them to make it legit commercially.I dont think it happens as much as it used to but theres always going to be some bad apples.