ASMFC wanted us to have a 1 fish 36"+ last year. It should have gone that way before some in MD wanted to mess with it. Now those that fought for the no-take slot dont want it because most fish were in the slot and it severely hurt charters being able to keep fish. To be quite frank it doesnt matter much for conservation because our harvest on big fish is a pimple on the elephant as far as the take on big fish goes up and down the coast. We took less than 3% off of the spawning stock biomass even when we had 1 fish @ 28"+. The coastal reductions will have far greater effect on the health of the stock here.
I dont think we should even be asking the ASMFC to look at the capts choice. I think it stands little to no chance of getting board approval and it takes away from us asking to change both the trophy season and coastal seasons. (They dont really like change after reductions have been implemented because it makes it harder for them to determine effectiveness of reductions). Besides the stock assessment update is due out this year and we hopefully can go back and ask for an 18" min again next year. I was surprised no one took up conversation about having a split summer season mentioned by the DNR striped bass representative.
I dont care about the coastal regulations but think it is odd that we will have the same regulations as a neighboring state we dont have license reciprocity with and different regulations than the state we do have license reciprocity with. In other words under a MD license you can fish VA and MD waters and have different regs for each state. However you cannot fish DE waters with a MD license but our regs conform with theirs. I dont care about it. Just odd.
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If I were king for a day, I would find a way to extend the season until Dec 31st. I would explore having 3 seasons, Trophy, summer and fall...
Trophy 1 @35"+
Summer 2@18"+ (1 allowed to be 28"+)
Fall (maybe Oct 1 - Dec31 ) 2 @ 22" + (1 allowed to be 28"+) or whatever it would take to get the 18" summer fish and get the season to go to December 31st.
I personally would even go with a 1 fish per person creel after Nov 1 to get to the end of the year. Much harder to book C&R only trips vs even having a 1 fish creel.
Last edited by B-Faithful; 01-27-2016 at 04:22 PM.
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