Couple things here
1. MG seems to be a very smart fella and I like how he includes his family into all his activities and studies, and I wish I had half the knowledge of statistics and experimental design that he has.
2. I am 100% for the limit being switched back to 25 and will gladly speak or write letters or do whatever it takes to get this changed.
3. "W" is very passionate about this, but is just flat out going about this the wrong way, a one week study or somebody's opinion is not going to do anything. The way to do this is to go to the LWFC and tell them that our fisheries should be managed by professionals and not the opinions of the few. I am fighting this right now on Lake D'arbonne.
4. I have NEVER seen a trout eat another trout. They DO however eat each other if other food supplies are not available - this is probably a good thing that trout are not eating one another as it shows there is 'plenty of bait'
. I have also seen thousands of deer, but have honestly never seen one drink water but it happens
5. Science is never just accepted as fact, no matter how many studies are done, it takes long-term studies to show the best results. The world was once thought to be flat, the sun was thought to rotate around the earth, etc. Jeff P may be on the water more than anyone but that does not mean he is right in his opinion, that is all that is is an opinion. Here is another - 90% of climate scientists (experts) think that man attributes to climate change
I ain't touching that one though.
6. Where in the world did the 40% reduction in trout come from? Just because one person or three people who fish all the time caught 40% less that year, means nothing, zero. You would have to be at every ramp and check every single fisherman year after year to get those numbers. A 40 % reduction would mean that the average angler that catches say 10 fish each outing is now only catching 6, or the one who catches 5 is now catching 3, no way to show those numbers. Again, there are not ANY numbers that can attribute the limit reduction to smaller fish, larger fish, more bait, etc without many long-term studies. The best thing here would be to go to the commission or congressman and say 'we' want fisheries to be managed by the professionals and if it ain't broke don't try and fix it.
just saying that if "w" wants to go in 'guns a blazin' to a LWFC meeting and present hard core 'facts' this ain't exactly the study to bring up, they want long-term, as I would want as well. If someone showed me a one week study and wanted something changed because of those numbers I would want a little more data (not knocking this study, i know its just preliminary but at least its something). I would want to see several thousands of fish measured for several years, and I would not measure females during this time as their weights are highly variable during spawning season, and also would definitely want to know the AGE of the fish, because if the fish that were measured last year averaged one year old and 12" as opposed to one year old and 9" this year, then you may have something but without knowing the age of the fish, we can't really assume much