I agree with Tawn about needing two fish in the summer. I think it would be devastating to not only the charter industry but fishing participation in general if the summer creel were one fish. I know a lot of die hard fishermen support catch and release. I do to. However the bulk of the sport fishing population wants to keep fish. Most do not make the number of trips a year that diehards do either. Lets face it, the fish has so much value as table fare that there is commercial market for them. It is hard to tell someone who makes only a few trips per year at most that they can only keep one fish resident size fish per trip. They may not even buy a license for that.
Personally I dont have an issue with the 20" min but I run 4 packs and can search out larger fish on a given trip since I only have to find 8 fish. I dont have 10 people on board all hoping to catch their fish and can move off smaller fish or use larger spot. (lets not go down the road of limiting people who can fish or number of trips either as we are all sportfishing whether one is paying to fish from a with 10 other people boat or one fishing from a private boat). So I get Tawn's concerns here.
Most here have to remember that scientist are requesting a 25% reduction on the SSB, not a closure of striped bass fishing (they dont know if there is need for a reduction in the bay on resident fish yet as they are still developing the reference points). I know some wont be happy until no one keeps a fish but it is a God-given resource that is to be used wisely. Wisely being the key word and up for debate
