Quote:
Originally Posted by KDM
The empirical data may support your hypothesis, hence my suggestion regarding research.
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GCCA was born in the 1980s centered around putting new regulations in place to protect redfish from commercial over harvesting associated with the blackened redfish craze. Protecting redfish was most of their emphasis in the 1980s and 1990s, along with banning gill nets. In this period, most of their supported political positions were scientifically sound.
Reading CCAs version of their history, one would think that since 2000, they are satisfied with the protection afforded to the fish by the current regulations and are content with improving and protecting habitat (rigs to reefs, oyster reefs, inshore artificial reefs). Their self-described history tends to hide their ongoing involvement in promoting more restrictive regulations and increasing the burden on recreational anglers.
The 2005 speckled trout bag and possession limit changes in Big Lake, the 2013 attempted LA limit change in tripletail, and the 136% license fee increase are only a few examples. They generally have taken a big gov't, anti-science view point of better safe than sorry and shifting the burden of proof to advocates for liberty rather than to advocates for ever increasing restrictions and burdens on recreational anglers. "Erring on the side of caution" as conservation policy loves to say no to harvest and loves to expand regulations when there is no sound support in the data to do so. Thus their positions on tripletail and speck limits in LA.
Following the same approach CCA has also pushed for more restrictive redfish limits in FL. In 2007, they pushed to further restrict the slot limit from 18-27" to 21-27", maintain the limit of one redfish, and close the month of October to recreational harvest. In 2010, they opposed FWC's proposed data-driven limit from 1 to 2 redfish in areas of FL where the data supported an increase. They seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to adopt more restrictive regulations based on observations of increased fishing pressure without fully understanding stock assessments. Banning of all redfish harvest in federal waters and banning all commercial harvest of redfish in state waters has led to a tremendous recovery of redfish stocks thus allowing increased recreational harvests.
Observations of increased fishing pressure was also a motive for the speck limit change in LA in 2005 and for the attempted restrictive limits in tripletail in 2013. This habitual reaction to call for more restrictive regulations neglects the fact that most recreational anglers catch nowhere near the limit on most trips. It also assumes that the stock is incapable of supporting a larger harvest.
CCA would do well to move away from the big gov't approach of conservation via ever increasing regulation of recreational fisheries and stick to habitat conservation and restoration.