Marlin - Release or Kill.... Let's Hear It!!

[Deep C]

Tourney... If its close it gets dead. Then gets eaten. Otherwise it goes away.

Rec/ Charter:If one comes up stone dead it gets eaten. Otherwise all marlin and sails are free to steal my baits again another day..

[TommyTuna]

"THE ONLY TIME A MARLIN SHOULD BE KILLED IS IF IT IS A QUALIFYING FISH IN A TOURNAMENT.
IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE MONEY."

REALLY?

[Deep C]

Mike
You know i love ya to death so what I'm about to say is not personal in any way. There IS NO MARLIN CRISIS... I've said it a thousand times before and will say it again and again. They have spread out to find food. We killed the food. Thats what needs to be protected. We used to have square miles of giant tuna in the mud hole. They were there for the ling and whiting. They're all but gone because the food is. The bunkers, hoos, mullet, squid, clams, scallops, mackerel, herring, pilchard, sardine, butterfish have been fished thin. The marlin have simply moved. I see more whites in the Bahamas now than ever before. The food is there...
One or two long line poorly long line sets kill more billfish than recs do in a year. Tourneys and other incidentals included... That's still a drop in the bucket compared to the number we do by systematically starving them.

[Sterling]

We may not be that far apart on this one Deep. I absolutely don't think that recreational fishing has been a major issue for marlin. But, what I am told, and read, is that White Marlin are at 12% of the population they should be at and that the decline to this number has happened relatively recently (20 - 30 yrs). 12% and dropping is a scary number if it's anywhere near close. We saw a lot of whites off the mid-atlantic this year so I hope you're right. I also saw a lot of long line activity later in the year. I don't know how the NMFS arrived at 12% but it and other factors have us at a 250 marlin limit for the country, which obviously isn't enough to go around...even if the fish really are there.

The food source issue makes a lot of sense. There were many times when people were reporting whites and catching nothing else. It doesn't sound like the NMFS or other groups are even looking that direction. The don't seem to look anywhere other than to recreational fishing as the problem, and with only about 100 marlin landed last year, I think we all agree recreational fishing is not the problem.

[Sterling]

Tommy,
I certainly don't blame you for not reading my whole post, sometimes I get a bit wordy, or maybe I didn't make the point clear.

With a limit of 250 for the country, tournaments are the best way I can think of to allow anglers to have a shot at a kill. Even if there was no money involved, I think it's a great competitive way to allow people to fish for the kill and control the number killed.

And there are significant economic factors that make tournaments important. So, REALLY, it's not just about the money, it's also about a fair method for allocating the 250 marlin limit.

[Sterling]

Deep, I read through this again and may have jumped past part of your point.

The bunkers, hoos, mullet, squid, clams, scallops, mackerel, herring, pilchard, sardine, butterfish have been fished thin.

Do you see this problem coming from rec activity, commercial, environmental, all the above?

[Deep C]

Mike
You hit a nail on the head there. NMFS numbers are based on what? Some tree huggers assessment of what? They compare numbers of one spot that was hot doring their study then recount after the fish have moved on. In one little area? I don't buy their numbers for a second. That would be like counting the hudson in august then again in february... Hell, I could stand on a bonefish flat one day and count a hundred fish. Same flat the next day at the same tide and condition and see three. Thats because the big school wiped out the shrimp and crabs the first day. They moved to a new flat...

Then they don't take cycles into account. You know the type. As A kid i fished one spot on the river and caught flounder year after year. Then all of a sudden I'm catching a load of weakfish after never even seeing one before. Or pounding puffers at another spot year after year then for years they are gone. One day suddenly they're back. So, I put absolutely no faith in their numbers. None! Zip! Zilch! Zero!

As for the bait issue... This comes from so many angles its not funny. Comm food, comm fertilizer, rec bait are all to blame... I put no more weight one or or another. Like the fingers of a cancer cell it reaches deep. That complex of condos sitting on once fertile minnow banks or that multi million dollar palace now occupying a flounder nursery take just as much blame...
Hell I can even see the regs designed to help fish killing bait. Do you have any idea how much food a couple hundred million extra bass can eat? I know the bass in the Navesink and Shrewsbury have squashed a once amazing population of winter flounder.