WE SPOKE; WILL ASMFC LISTEN?

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Management Board will meet ten seven days from today.

In roughly 240 hours, we’ll know whether managers have taken meaningful steps to conserve and hopefully restore the Atlantic migratory striped bass stock, or whether they abandoned their obligation to the public at large and chose to pander to the small minority of people who profit from killing this public resource.

LINK (via: One Angler's Voyage)

ENVIROS AND ANGLERS

I'll say it again, if you're not reading Charles Witek's blog you should be.

As I’ve noted before in this blog, most anglers like to think of themselves as the good guys.

If you catch them in a moment of honesty, maybe down at the dock in the evening, or standing around the bar before their fishing club meeting convenes, they’ll tell you sure, they want to take fish home, but they’ll be glad to take a few less if that means that their kids and their grandkids will be able to have good fishing, too.

They’ll tell you that they’re a little concerned that there’s not enough bait for the bass to feed on, and that the sewer plant over by Bay Park is doing bad things to the bay.

They understand what “conservation” means, and on the whole, think that it’s a pretty good idea.

So it gets a little puzzling that, when somebody mentions “environmentalists”—folks who, as a whole, want to make sure there are enough fish around for the next generation, protect stocks of the forage fish and try to clean up our waters and protect essential fish habitat—a lot of anglers suddenly start breathing hard, pointing fingers, and calling those folks “the enemy.”

LINK (via: One Angler's Voyage)

Red Snapper Anglers Embarrass Us All

Photo: Geeklikepi

Charles Witek with a withering take down of those fighting sensible regulations aimed towards rebuilding red snapper populations.

LINK (via:One Anglers Voyage)