Hello commercial fisherman.
There are a few other commercial guys on this board as well. I am not one of them. I can understand some of your anger Clamman, that has brought you to register today and immediately post this topic. I read your comment on the reports as well.
Lately it seems that whenever a commercial fishing boat is spotted in the area where a recreational fishing boat is, there is a general call for concern as to the legality of it. In the case of the greenport report you replied to, you say that it was a complete fabrication. That may be. I did not see one commercial fishing boat out there on Saturday.
The problem lies with the fact that recreational fisherman are the public utilizing a public resource and commercials are a private industry utilizing a public resource to profit from. So of course recs are critical of commercials when we see our public resources being depleted, and often only as by catch, in pusuit of the all mighty dollar.
Myself and many others realize that commercial fisherman have a place in this world. You provide a service to the nations population that cannot get out and fish and even to fisherman themselves (As Alan pointed out here and Bucktail on another thread). However, it also seems that there are too many commercial fisherman out there trying to scratch a living out of a dwindling resource by using more and more efficient technologies.
The decline of certain fisheries is only part of the problem though. When recreational's see programs like "Empty Oceans, Empty Nets", read the recent rash of reports of illegal poaching incedents, see all of the pot bouys out there and see first hand the effects of by catch (Last season there was a huge school of stripers dumped back outside of FI inlet), you guys get a bad rap. Many recs beleive that commercials would use any means necessary to catch every last fish from the oceans just to bring in that last dollar.
Not all commercial guys are to blame. Many of you are operating within your legal rights. When the recs realize this and they shift from attacking the commercials personally and then focus on trying to change the regs, the commercial guys take that personally as well. Then the recs are trying to overregulate, and take away the comms livelhood, which they take personally. So, everything becomes a personal attack.
Don't worry though. The recreational guys attack each other almost as vehemently. Look at the arguments between bait fisherman and pluggers, or fly fisherman and between those who brag about Catch and Release and those who brag about limiting out. As recs we are almost as divided internally as the recs from comms.
Bottom line is that the commercial fisherman are too good at what they do. Either by regulation or by loss of species commercial fisherman are going to be loosing some of their jobs, so that the rest can survive. I personally would rather see the regulations drive some out so that fish stocks would not have to dwindle to get the same effect.
On a side note for commercial fisherman, I saw an interesting video clip a few days ago that showed how a new squid net reduced by catch by over 90%. That is great and I would like to see more of this technology applied to other methods of fishing. But while by catch is reduced, overfishing is still a possibility.
As one species declines, another will take over as the preferred game. There was a time when lobsters were considered only for fertilzer, now they are harder to find. Dogfish used to be discarded as by catch and now the europeans eat them for "fish and chips" I am sure there will come a time when sea robins and skates are targeted as well.
I hope there will come a time when some kind of understanding between recs and comms can be reached, but I doubt it is likely. Good luck to all.
Chris